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••• %/ -^- 







Trudy and Timothy 
and the Trees 


By BERTHA CURRIER PORTER 

fl 

Author of “Trudy and Timothy” 
“Trudy and Timothy Out-of-Doors” 



Illustrated by 
MAY AIKEN 


THE PENN PUBLISHING 
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 
1920 



COPYRIGHT 
1920 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 



Trudy and Timothy and the Trees 

OCT 29 1920 


©CI.A601186 


Introduction 


Dear Boys and Girls: 

If you have read “ Trudy and Timothy ” 
and “ Trudy and Timothy Out-of-doors/’ you 
know just how Todd’s Ferry looks, and all about 
the people there. So perhaps you will be glad 
now to go with the children who earned their 
trips to Washington; to leave the quiet country 
village, and stay for a while in the wonderful 
Capitol City. 

But while you are enjoying the new scenes and 
friends with Trudy and Timothy, and Francis 
and Belle, strangers are coming to Todd’s 
Ferry — strange men who bring with them a dan- 
ger to the village and to all the folks who live 
there, although at first no one realizes this. 
Luckily, the Forest Ranger, telling his true 
wonder-stories to the children, teaches them to 
know this danger, so, when they come back and 
learn what is happening — but, that is the story 
3 


4 


INTRODUCTION 


of “ Trudy and Timothy and the Trees,” and 
you want to read that for yourselves, don’t you? 

And find out the secret of the sap-house; learn 
what made dear Aunt Theresy sick, and why no 
one of the grown-ups could cure her; read about 
the “ We Four — No More ” club, and why they 
had to change the name; and, at last, you will 
see that Trudy and Timothy’s good times in 
Washington not only gave them a wonderful 
vacation, but helped to save something that meant 
health, wealth and happiness to every one in 
Todd’s Ferry; that means food and shelter and 
life to every one of us, everywhere! 





“those big pines over yonder take my eye” 


Contents 


I. 

Building the Sap-House 



9 

II. 

The Trees . 



2 3 

III. 

Christmas 



37 

IV. 

The Journey 



5 1 

V. 

Washington . 



65 

VI. 

A Reminder of Todd’s Ferry 


79 

VII. 

Sight-Seeing 



94 

VIII. 

The Forest Ranger 



105 

IX. 

At the Zoo . 



n 7 

X. 

Home Again . 



129 

XI. 

Aunt Theresy is Sick . 



141 

XII. 

In the Sap-House . 



152 

XIII. 

The Pot of Gold . 



165 

XIV. 

Keeping a Secret . 



00 

l-i 

XV. 

Mr. Perkins Makes Up His Mind 


190 

XVI. 

Old Home Week . 

. 


203 

XVII. 

The Day of the Big Pines 

. 


213 


6 



Illustrations 


PAGE 


“Those Big Pines Over Yonder Take My 

Eye ” ..... Frontispiece 

The Roots Towered High Above Their Heads 31*—"' 

They Were Really Looking at the White 

House ! 73^ 

He Told Them of the Big Trees in California 108 

“You Blessed Children, to Think of Such a 

Beautiful Plan ” 170 O'" 


Trudy and Timothy and the Trees 


v» 


Trudy and Timothy and 
the Trees 


CHAPTER i 

BUILDING THE SAP-HOUSE 

‘‘Are we all ready? ” 

Father looked about him. He was standing 
in the doorway of the big white farmhouse, 
buttoning his sweater. Behind him, in the living- 
room, Grandmother was clearing the breakfast 
table. 

“ I’m ready,” shouted Timothy, who was 
hopping about impatiently between the door- 
stone and the road. “ I’ve been ready about ten 
hours ! ” 

“Ten hours!” laughed Francis; “you were 
sound asleep ten hours ago.” 

“ We’re ready,” announced Trudy, putting 
her arm about Belle Perkins. 

Amos came around the corner of the house 
9 


10 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


with two saws and a hammer. “ I’m all ready,” 
he said. “ Come on, let’s get started. Lots 
to do.” 

Just then Grandfather backed the farm wagon 
out of the bam. It was loaded with boards, 
windows, a door, a keg of nails and some cans of 
paint, while two ladders stuck out at the back. 

“ Francis,” called Grandfather, “ I want you 
to ride with me and see that nothing falls off this 
load. Bring your crutches, for you’ll do a lot 
of walking this day, and you may get tired.” 

“We’ll meet you,” said Father, as Francis 
hurried to the wagon. “We are going across 
lots. Come on, everybody.” 

Belle and Trudy skipped ahead. Father, 
Amos and Timothy, each carrying tools, fol- 
lowed. They crossed the road and disappeared 
behind the red barn. 

As Amos had said, there was a great deal to do 
this bright cool October day. They were going 
to build a new sap-house in the maple grove that 
Grandfather Todd had bought from Aunt 
Theresy Hinton. In the spring they were going 
to make maple syrup there, and have a sugar 


11 


AND THE TREES 

party, just like Mr. Turner. The grove was on 
a slope, not far from the big pine trees that Aunt 
Theresy owned and loved. You could reach it 
by driving along the road, past Mr. Turner’s 
house, and going in by an old, over-grown wood 
road, or you could go, as the others preferred, by 
a lovely, winding path through the woods behind 
Grandfather’s barn. Amos said it was a pretty 
good-looking path, even if the cows had made it, 
going to the brook to drink. And when you 
reached the brook there were big mossy stepping- 
stones to cross on, and another little path that 
Aunt Theresy’s old Sukey had made, in her daily 
trips for water. 

The path was brilliant to-day, all covered with 
bright red and yellow leaves that had fallen from 
the trees. Some of them had caught in the little 
pines and looked like gay blossoms among the 
green needles. The sky was clear blue, there 
were no clouds, and the strong northwest wind 
blew more and more leaves from the trees. As 
they walked along the path, the children scuffed 
their feet in the leaves. They ran and laughed 
and had such a good time. Timothy kept ahead, 


12 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


but Belle and Trudy walked with their arms 
about each other where the path was wide enough, 
and talked about their trip to Washington. 

Ever since the exhibition when Belle’s pre- 
serves had taken first prize, and T. Todd’s ex- 
hibit had won Mr. Johnston’s special offer, the 
girls had been chums. The prizes were trips to 
Washington, and Mr. Johnston, who lived there 
every winter, had invited the three children — for 
Timothy had had a hand in the winning, and 
although he would not accept any part of the 
prize, had earned the money to go, too — to stay 
with him. He and his sister, Miss Margaret, 
were still in Todd’s Ferry, and when they went 
home would take the party with them. So you 
see, there was a great deal to talk about. 

Belle was a plump little girl, not quite so tall 
as Trudy, although she was a year older. She 
had blue eyes, and straight brown hair that she 
wore parted on the side and looped up in two 
braids, with big bows behind her ears. 

Suddenly, while they were talking, they heard 
Timothy, far ahead, give a shout, and saw him 
rush up the side of the hill. 


AND THE TREES 13 

“ Chestnuts ! Chestnuts I ” he called. “ Come 
on and get some! ” 

And then, Washington forgotten, the girls 
raced up the hill too. They hunted in the yellow 
leaves for the prickly burrs, and for any loose 
nuts that the jays and squirrels had missed, but 
there were not many of these. Timothy stamped 
on the burrs, and the girls picked out the nuts. 
They filled their pockets and then hurried down 
to overtake Amos. He was waiting at the brook. 

“ Just saw a heron rise,” he said. “ There he 
goes — see his long legs? ” 

They walked along quickly now, for they 
wanted to reach the grove ahead of Francis and 
Grandfather. The men had been there the day 
before, dug the post-holes and set up the corner 
posts. The sap-house was to be a very grand 
sap-house; quite large, with bunks in it, in case 
anyone wanted to stay all night when the sap was 
running well. There was to be a stove; tables 
and stools made from logs ; a closet with dishes, 
so you could cook your meals ; and a strong lock 
for the door, with four keys — one for Grand- 
father, one for Father, one for Timothy and one 


14 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY: 

for Amos. Because there were strange lumber- 
men about Todd’s Ferry now, working on vari- 
ous wood-lots, and they had been known to go 
into sap-houses to sleep, and to borrow pans and 
kettles and go away without washing them. The 
Todd family did not want any strangers using 
their nice new sap-house. 

At last they saw the grove. Ahead of them, 
at the end of the path, the maples burned like 
flames between the green pines that grew thick 
on either side. Among the glowing trees they 
could see the heaps of brown earth left from 
digging the post-holes, the new yellow posts and 
the pile of lumber that Grandfather had brought 
the day before. But Grandfather and Francis 
had not yet come. They soon heard them, talk- 
ing as they drove slowly up the soft wood road. 
Grandfather unharnessed Jack-horse, and tied 
him to a tree. Timothy blanketed him, and Amos 
began to unload the wagon. Francis walked 
around the four poles that were the beginning of 
the sap -house, while the girls showed him where 
the doors and windows were to be. It did seem 
so good to have Francis walking like other peo- 


AND THE TREES 


15 


pie. When he had come to Todd’s Ferry he 
could not walk at all, and practically lived in his 
wheel chair. The French surgeon had cured 
him, just as Mr. Johnston had hoped, and now 
Francis used his crutches only when he was tired. 

Very soon the jays, screaming in the trees, 
found their cries drowned out by the hammering 
and sawing and pounding and chattering of the 
human creatures that had come so boldly into 
their woods. Grandfather and Timothy put 
boards across saw-horses, and measured and 
sawed; Amos nailed the boards in place, and 
Francis fetched and carried tools. The girls 
were raking up chips and smoothing the piles of 
earth in places where they found a chance to 
work. Such a busy, noisy time! And how fast 
the sap-house grew! It did not seem any time 
at all before Amos had to climb a ladder and 
Grandfather had to lift the boards up to him. 
They were all so busy that they never heard the 
laughter that sounded down the wood road, or 
the calls that drifted through the bright trees. 
They were too busy to see the carry-all that came 
slowly toward the sap-house, and not until J ack- 


16 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

horse whinnied did they look up from their work. 
Then 

“ Oh, see — all the folks ! Goody — goody ” 

“ Grandmother, see the sap-house,” shouted 
Timothy. 

“ I’m nailing on boards,” came Francis’ voice 
from high up on the farther side. “ Is Miss 
Margaret there? ” 

“ Oh, do be careful! Don’t fall, Francis,” she 
called, jumping out of the carry-all. “ Isn’t it 
splendid? See how much you have done! ” 

“ Help me with these baskets,” said Mr. Johns- 
ton. “ Where’s the can of milk? ” 

They all stopped work then and gathered 
about the new arrivals. Mr. Johnston had 
brought Grandmother and Mother and Miss 
Margaret over to see the sap-house, and they had 
a dinner for everyone. And how surprised the 
carpenters were when Mr. Johnston said it was 
almost twelve o’clock. 

“ Take a rest now,” said Grandmother, “ and 
have dinner. In the old days, when anyone built 
a house or barn — ‘ raised it,’ they used to say — 
the women-folks always brought the dinner out 


AND THE TREES 


17 


to the workers. It saved time, and when it was 
too dark to work any, more, they could go into 
the house and have a hearty meal. We thought 
that old custom was a good one to follow, and 
here we are with the lunch. I hope you are glad 
to see us.” 

They certainly were, and they spread the car- 
riage robes on the ground and sat about in a big 
circle, while the jays hopped as near as they 
dared, hoping for crumbs. 

“ I wish I had a good drink of water,” re- 
marked Amos, as he stood up and stretched him- 
self. “ Milk is all right, but there’s nothing like 
water for quenching your thirst. It’s quite a 
walk to Theresy’s spring.” 

“ You come with me,” said Timothy. “ You 
all come. I’ve something to show you. I dis- 
covered it yesterday.” 

He led the way to a ledge of rock at the back 
of the sap-house. A witch hazel bush grew at its 
base, and dry ferns crackled under their feet. 
He stooped over, pushing the ferns aside and 
lifting the drooping branches of witch hazel. In 
a little hidden hollow, between four or five rocks, 


18 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

was a tiny pool of water, clear and moving a bit 
in the center. 

“A perfectly good spring,” he declared; “I 
know, for I saw the frog in it.” 

“ The frog? ” It was Francis who cried out. 

“ Sure — that’s a sign the water is fresh. No 
frog will live in a bad spring.” 

“ I ought to have remembered this,” said 
Amos, filling a drinking-cup. “ This is 4 Old 
Unfailing,’ where we always used to drink when 
we cut lumber on this side of the hill. The place 
has grown up so it did not look natural. Good 
for you, Timothy! You’ll always have water 
for your camp, for this spring never freezes, even 
in the coldest weather.” 

Francis forgot all about the frog wdien he had 
a drink of the icy spring water, and Grandfather 
said, 44 We must clean this out, and mark it, and 
hang a dipper on the bush so any thirsty man 
may drink.” 

After lunch, the work went on again. When 
the boards were all in place, Amos said, 44 Where’s 
the tar paper, Sam? We could make a begin- 
ning on that if w^e had it.” 


AND THE TREES 19 

“No tar paper on this sap-house,” declared 
Father, and Grandfather laughed. 

“ The children won’t have it, Amos,” he ex- 
plained. “ They insist on having a stylish sap- 
house, so I’m going to clapboard it, to please 
them. It will look more like a summer hotel 
than a place to make sugar, but I don’t admire 
tar paper myself.” 

“And don’t forget the green stain,” Miss Mar- 
garet reminded him. “ You know you promised 
to stain it green, because I want it that way.” 

“ When you come to my maple-sugar party, 
you’ll have to wear white gloves,” chuckled 
Grandfather, “ to keep up with the style of the 
house.” 

When they drove away from the unfinished 
building they could all imagine how it would look 
in a few days — stained a dark green like the pine 
trees whose tops towered above the maples — 
with a long table in the cozy room, and stools 
drawn up to it, the stove in the corner, and the 
bunks along the walls. 

“ We must bring Aunt Theresy over to see it,” 
said Francis, 


20 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

“ Let’s go and tell her about it now,” sug- 
gested Timothy. “ May we, Grandmother? ” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Todd,” begged Belle, “ let Trudy 
walk home that way with me, please? We can 
stop and see Aunt Theresy, and Pa has to 
go up to the farmhouse to-night with some 
freight, and he’ll bring Trudy home from our 
house.” 

So, at the main road, Trudy and Belle and 
Timothy left the others and walked down, past 
the big pines, to the little house where Aunt 
Theresy Hinton lived, alone with the treasures 
that her ancestors had brought in sailing vessels 
across the great seas, years and years ago. 

They went around to the back door and 
knocked. No one came. They thought per- 
haps that Aunt Theresy had gone to the village 
for her mail, so they peeped in at the kitchen win- 
dow. Then they tiptoed hurriedly down the 
steps and looked at each other, very solemnly. 
They had all seen it. 

In a rocking-chair in the kitchen was Aunt 
Theresy. She had her blue checked apron up 
to her face, and she was very still. But they had 


AND THE TREES 


21 


seen her wipe her eyes. Aunt Theresy was cry- 
ing, and Aunt Theresy was all alone. 

“ We’ll just go ’round to the front door, and 
ring the bell loud, and pretend we’ve just come,” 
said Trudy, “ then if it’s anything she wants us 
to know, she’ll tell us, and if it isn’t, why, we 
mustn’t say anything about it.” 

When Aunt Theresy came to the front door 
she seemed just as glad to see them as ever, and 
she wanted to hear all about the sap-house, but 
she did not talk quite as much as usual, and her 
eyes were red. 

On the road to the village, they wondered 
about it. 

“ Why did your grandfather buy her sugar 
orchard anyway? ” asked Belle. “ He has one 
of his own, hasn’t he? ” 

“ Yes,” said Timothy, “ but he said it was a 
long way off, and this one would be a good deal 
handier.” 

“ Well, Aunt Theresy has sold lots of her land, 
Pa says.” 

“And she doesn’t keep her walls and fences 


up 


22 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


“And she sold her horse, and walks all that 
long way to the village! ” 

That evening Timothy tried to ask Grand- 
father more about Aunt Theresy and her sugar 
orchard, but Grandmother sent him to bed and 
he did not get much information. While he was 
wondering about it before he went to sleep Belle 
Perkins was sitting at the table with her father, 
who was having a late supper after an extra trip 
with the stage. She was telling him about the 
new sap-house. 

“ Oh, it’s going to be great, Pa,” she said, 
“ but why did Aunt Theresy sell her sugar or- 
chard? ” 

“Why?” repeated Mr. Perkins, taking a 
great swallow of tea. “ Why? Because she had 
to, that’s why! Theresy Hinton is poorer than 
Job’s cat! ” 


CHAPTER II 


THE TREES 

The children were puzzled when Belle told 
them what her father had said; they thought at 
first they would speak to Mr. Johnston about 
Aunt Theresy, but, if she were really very poor, 
he would want to help her, and he had helped 
so many people since he came to Todd’s Ferry 
that perhaps he couldn’t afford to keep on for- 
ever. And Trudy’s father and mother always 
discouraged talking about people’s affairs. But 
the children knew that Aunt Theresy would 
never cry unless she felt dreadfully, so at last 
they told Amos. 

“ Poorer than Job’s cat? ” said Amos. “Well, 
now I’ve read about Job in the Bible, and I 
can’t recollect the cat, but Job did have a hard 
time, lost all his money and all his property, and 
as I remember, his friends weren’t any too help- 
ful about it. But that’s the difference. Maybe 
23 


24 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


Aunt Theresy hasn’t much money, but she has 
lots of friends. And since she came back to 
Todd’s Ferry this time, I guess she has made a 
few new ones — kind of young, maybe, but I 
rather think they will stand by her. If you have 
good friends, you’re not poor.” 

He was standing in Father’s shed, and Trudy 
and Timothy were measuring out feed for the 
hens’ breakfast. Now that the boarding-houses 
were closed, Amos’s fish trade was not so brisk. 
He made only three trips a week, and on the 
other days he did painting and carpentering or 
took a vacation, as he called a long day in the 
woods. 

“ Nice day for a vacation,” he said now. “ I 
came up to see if you would like to go exploring. 
Few little things I want to find out. Mr. Johns- 
ton’s going into business, isn’t he? ” he added 
as Father came out from the kitchen. 

Father laughed. “ He just telephoned that 
he wanted me all day,” he said. “ They came 
last night. Good day to do it, isn’t it? But how 
did you know, Amos? You must be a mind 
reader.” 


AND THE TREES 25 

“ No — saw the hampers at the station last 
night.” 

“ What hampers? ” 

“ What is it? What do you mean? Tell us ! ” 

Trudy and Timothy were pulling at Father 
and Amos. 

“ Do you remember the first time you ever saw 
Mr. Johnston? ” asked Father. 

“ I guess I do. Trudy and I were in the 
woods getting evergreen for the Christmas 
wreaths, and we heard a noise, and there he was, 
looking just like Santa Claus, only he had on a 
fur coat instead of a red one, and he was feeling 
of the trees. We thought he was really Santa 
Claus picking out Christmas trees ! ” 

“And don’t you think so now? ” 

“ Well ” Timothy hesitated. 

“ If he wasn’t then, he’s going to be now; at 
least he’s going into the business,” explained 
Amos. “ He is going to raise Christmas 
trees.” 

“ You remember the sloping pasture that we 
passed when we drove from Aunt Theresy’s to 
his house, the day we hung the May -baskets? 


26 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

He has decided that field is exactly suited to 
spruce and hemlock trees. There are several 
acres in the pasture, the land is too poor to plant, 
so because he doesn’t believe in letting land go to 
waste, and because he thinks everyone should 
plant trees, he’s going to do his share.” 

“ Is he really going to sell Christmas trees? ” 

“ I don’t think so, but he likes to call them by 
that name. I’m going up now to help him. The 
trees have come, and the dealer has sent men to 
set them out for him.” 

“ I want to improve my education by seeing it 
done,” Amos said, “ and I thought perhaps you 
would keep me company.” 

Miss Fields had given them a holiday, and 
Belle had gone to Concord, so Trudy had ex- 
pected a lonely day; but here was a wonderful 
chance for a good time. Mother put up a lunch, 
they went over to Grandfather’s and borrowed 
the buckboard, then drove up to the big house 
for Francis. There was no need now to put the 
wheel chair on the buckboard. Francis and 
Trudy were on the seat with Amos, and Timothy 
sat behind and dragged his heels in the dry grass 


AND THE TREES 27 

that grew high between the wheel tracks in the 
road. 

“We haven’t had a real picnic for a long 
time,” said Amos, “ and I guess this will be all 
new ground for Francis. We’ll call it a tree 
day. We will watch the men setting out Mr. 
Johnston’s forest, then I’ll take you around to 
see the big trees that were uprooted by the tor- 
nado a hundred years ago; and last, we’ll drive 
up the mountain road and see the steam saw- 
mill.” 

“ Oh, won’t that be great! ” 

For several weeks a whistle had been heard in 
Todd’s Ferry from high on the mountain. Three 
times a day it blew; at seven in the morning, at 
noon, and at five in the afternoon, and so regu- 
larly that people had formed the habit of setting 
their clocks by it. It was the whistle on the 
steam sawmill, calling the men to work and to 
meals. The mill could not be seen from the vil- 
lage, but the bare spots where the lumber had 
been cut were clearly visible, and huge piles of 
fresh yellow sawdust glistened in the afternoon 


sun. 


28 TRUDY, AND TIMOTHY 

“ No need to hurry/’ said Amos. “ We’ll 
drive along leisurely to Johnston’s pasture. I 
don’t imagine these imported farmers get to 
work very early.” 

But when they reached the hillside pasture 
they found a busy place. Five strange men were 
there. Mr. Johnston and Father were standing 
by the bars, unpacking hampers that were filled 
with bundles of young trees, carefully packed, 
with wet moss tied around their roots. The men 
had dug a sloping trench, and on the side of it 
they laid the little trees ; first dipping their roots 
into a puddle of thin mud (a brook ran through 
this corner of the pasture) and then packing 
earth firmly about them to keep the tender little 
roots from drying. Later the men worked in 
pairs, and Father helped. One man went ahead 
with a mattock — a pick-axe with one end flat — 
and he cut away the grass and dug the hole for 
the tree. The second man followed, carrying 
some trees in a bucket of the thin mud. He put 
the trees in the holes that the first man had made 
ready, and packed the earth firm and hard about 
them. They were planted in long, straight rows. 


AND THE TREES 


29 


“ Some day, when you children are grown up,” 
said Mr. Johnston, “ you will come here and walk 
in a splendid forest.” 

“ But look at all the trees on the hills, and all 
the trees in Todd’s Ferry,” objected Timothy. 
“ I should think there were trees enough to last 
forever.” 

“ Wait till you see the sawmill,” said Amos. 
“You can destroy a tree a great deal quicker 
than you can make one grow. It takes thirty, 
forty, fifty years to get a big tree, and you can 
cut one down, saw it into boards and sell the 
boards, all in a few days. And now we are 
going over to see the old roots,” he told Mr. 
Johnston. And to the children, as they 
drove along the grassy wood road, he said, 
“ Watch for some big trees, flat on their 
sides, with their roots sticking up in the 
air.” 

“ Which side of the road? ” 

“ That’s for you to find out.” 

“All right ! Francis, you take that side. I’ll 
take this.” 

“ I can see both sides,” said Timothy, “ and 


30 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


I’ve seen ’em before. I’ll bet you’ll miss them, 
and I’ll see them first.” 

Trudy thought that giant trees with roots 
sticking up in the air would be easy to find, but 
even when Amos stopped the horse and said, 
“ Now they are in plain sight,” she could not 
locate them. 

“Away in there?” she cried, when at last he 
pointed with the whip. “ You said they were on 
the old post road.” 

“And so they were, a hundred years ago, but 
the old road is all grown up, and this new one 
is not in the same place.” 

Francis was already out of the buckboard and 
following Timothy into the woods. “ Come on,” 
he called, “ I can see them.” 

It seemed so good to have Francis tramping 
with them, instead of sitting in the wagon while 
they brought things to him. Now he led them 
all as they pushed their way through the bushes. 
Dry leaves fluttered to the ground as they passed, 
goldenrod and late purple asters came nearly to 
their waists, and blackberry vines pulled them 
back with clinging thorns. But at last they saw 



THE ROOTS TOWERED HIGH ABOVE THEIR HEADS 




































































































































































































































































AND THE TREES 


31 


the trees. Just long ridges in the floor of the 
woods, half buried in the earth ; the outside layer 
of their wood was soft and crumbling, with ferns 
and even slender young trees growing out of 
them. The tangled masses of the roots, hard and 
smooth as polished stone, stood upright. The 
spaces between them were filled with rocks and 
earth. Ferns grew from them too. The roots 
towered high above their heads, and they could 
see one rock firmly caught that was bigger than a 
sap bucket. 

“Weren’t they giants?” said Trudy. “As 
big as Aunt Theresy’s trees.” 

“ They were some of the same group of trees,” 
said Amos. “ I mean they were probably of the 
same age. Aunt Theresy’s trees, fortunately, 
were not in the path of the hurricane, and so 
escaped. You can imagine what the wind must 
have been, to blow down trees like these.” 

“ I’m glad it didn’t get Aunt Theresy’s trees,” 
said Timothy. “ They are quite a curiosity.” 

“ Oh, I hope nothing will ever happen to 
them,” said Trudy; “ it would be terrible to lose 
those tall, tall trees.” 


32 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

“ Well, now you have seen trees at the be- 
ginning of their life, and at the end of their life,” 
said Amos. “ Suppose we keep on and see the 
trees that are being murdered.” 

“ Murdered? ” gasped Trudy. 

“ That’s what I call it, the way Perkins is sell- 
ing off his lumber on the mountain. He doesn’t 
need the money, but a lumber company offered 
him a big price for his trees, so he is letting them 
cut wherever they like. Now there are three or 
four brooks that run down through his land and 
feed the lake. When the trees are all cut those 
brooks will be rushing floods. They will wash 
and gully the whole mountainside in the spring 
when the snow melts, and dry all up in the sum- 
mer. Reckless cutting like that makes floods 
and destruction. But the government is going 
to step in pretty soon and make us take care of 
the forests. There, I’m preaching you a ser- 
mon, but I do get so angry when I see anyone as 
foolish as Perkins is.” 

“ I don’t believe Belle knows it’s wrong,” said 
Trudy. “ She wouldn’t let her father do it if 
she did.” 


AND THE TREES 


33 


“ Better tell her,” suggested Amos. 

They drove up the steep mountain road, 
Francis driving Jack-horse while the others 
walked on all the sharpest pitches to save the 
horse. Often they stopped to rest him on the 
level places, and then they turned and looked 
down on Todd’s Ferry. The lake was like a blue 
heart, and the island a flaming crescent. The 
church tower was white among the trees that were 
rapidly turning now, red and brown and golden, 
with the green pines showing clearly among the 
bright autumn colors. After awhile they reached 
Mr. Perkins’ wood-lots. 

“ There! ” exclaimed Amos. “ Now, honestly, 
do you call that a pretty sight? ” 

As far as they could see, on both sides of the 
road, were the ruins of the forest; jagged yellow 
stumps with dried pitch that had oozed out of the 
cuts; old dried branches thrown helter-skelter in 
untidy piles; all the young underbrush broken 
and trampled. New boards were piled up by the 
roadside to dry and season. They could hear the 
buzz-zz-zz of the steam saw, and the voices of the 
workmen. Soon they passed huge piles of saw- 


34 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

dust, as high as small houses. “ That all came 
from the edges of the boards when they were 
cut,” said Amos. 

The sawmill was roofed over, but had no sides. 
An engine was chug-chugging there, and the 
great circular saw was biting its way into a tree 
that moved along on rollers as board after board 
was cut away. The sawdust was flying up from 
the saw, like wet, yellow snow. On the opposite 
side of the road were the rough shacks where the 
men camped. Trudy did not like it at all, but 
she wanted to see everything, so she followed 
Amos and the boys over to the mill. Francis 
and Timothy were rather quiet. Really, there 
was so much noise you could not talk. If you 
wanted to say anything, you had to shout. 

“ Bring the kids up to enlarge their educa- 
tion? ” yelled the sawyer to Amos. 

Amos nodded, wishing he might teach the 
sawyer some of the things he had been telling the 
children. The man stopped the saw, and they 
all went close to look at it. Francis had ex- 
pected to see a thin piece of metal, like Grand- 
father’s hand saw, but instead he found a heavy, 


AND THE TREES 


3 5 


thick metal disc, with separate teeth that fitted 
into sockets on the edge; these teeth were as wide 
as his finger, and the sawyer explained that the 
teeth chewed into the log, very, very fast, one 
after the other and so made a clean cut. 

“ We’re coming down your way, soon,” he said 
to Amos quite as if it was a pleasant piece of 
news. “ Perkins has a wood-lot down near those 
big pines that we are going to cut for him just as 
soon as we finish here. By the way, who owns 
the big trees? They would make some sizeable 
boards. With the price of lumber as it is now, 
they are worth money. Ought not to leave them 
to spoil.” 

“ The owner won’t sell,” said Amos shortly. 

They did not want to eat their lunch near the 
sawmill, so they drove down the mountain, Jack- 
horse zig-zagging down the steep road, until they 
found a spot near a brook that rushed along so 
swiftly over the stones and made so much noise 
that they could not hear the saw. Below, they 
could see their homes safe and sheltered among 
the strong trees. 

“ When I grow up,” said Timothy, taking a 


36 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY^ 


bite of hard-boiled egg, “ I’m going to have the 
best farm in all Todd’s Ferry. I’m going to 
learn how to do things right, the way Uncle Sam 
does, and I’m going to raise the best crops, and 
have the biggest trees of anyone ’round here. 
I’m never going to live in the city, but stay in my 
own home town and be a farmer. And I’m go- 
ing to have a big automobile too — a yellow one, 
like Mr. Sims’ — so I can go anywhere I want to 
for a vacation.” 

“Good for you,” approved Amos; “stick to 
that, lad. Nobody can live without the land. 
Food, clothing and shelter, all come from it. 
The farmer is a man to be honored, and the coun- 
try is a place where it is a privilege to live. Gra- 
cious!” he exclaimed, laughing, “I shall surely 
turn into a preacher before this Tree Day is over ! 
That’s the second sermon, so far. Well, I won’t 
preach any more to-day. Trudy, pass me some 
more of that cold chicken, please.” 


CHAPTER III 


CHRISTMAS 

When Belle came back from Concord, Trudy 
told her about the wonderful tree day, and 
begged her to ask her father not to cut down all 
his trees. 

“ I don’t know whether it would do any good,” 
said Belle; “ when Pa makes up his mind, it’s aw- 
fully hard to turn him. And I guess he doesn’t 
make as much money as he used to, now the 
boarding-houses are sending their own autos 
after the boarders. Pa used to bring everybody 
on the stage. He’s going to have an automobile 
stage next season. I guess he has to sell the 
trees, and the lumber company pays good money; 
I heard him say so.” 

“Well, you ask him anyway. It would be 
perfectly dreadful to have all the land around the 
big pines and Aunt Theresy’s house and our new 
sap-house looking like that place up on the moun- 
tain! ” 


37 


38 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


“All right. And now I’ve something to tell 
you. I know what made Aunt Theresy cry! 
She’s sold her cow! ” 

“ Sold her cow? Why, what will she do for 
milk and butter? Who bought the cow? ” 

Belle had just time to say, “A man from 
Prattville,” when Miss Fields rang the bell and 
they had to hurry back to school. But all the 
afternoon Trudy thought about Aunt Theresy 
and the cow, and as soon as she got home she told 
Father and Mother about it. 

“ Just as I thought,” said Father, looking at 

Mother. “ She ” and then he stopj)ed and 

began to whistle. 

“ But, Father, can’t we give her some of our 
milk? Where will she get any? There isn’t any 
house very near her.” 

“ There’s just the trouble, Trudy-girl. No- 
body can give Aunt Theresy Hinton anything. 
She is very proud, and wants to pay for every- 
thing she has, but she hasn’t the money to do it 
with. But don’t worry; none of us will see her 
want for anything.” 

“Anyway, it’s most Christmas, and she has 


AND THE TREES 


39 


promised to spend the day with Grandmother. 
We’re going to have a tree, and she will have to 
take the Christmas presents we give her! ” 

Mother laughed. “ Of course she will, but not 
if you put a cow on the tree.” 

Mr. Turner solved the milk difficulty. Tim- 
othy saw him soon after this, and heard about it. 

“ I’m taking milk to Aunt Theresy,” he said, 
as they drove over the hard-frozen road from the 
village. “ You know my housekeeper isn’t much 
on sewing, so I asked Theresy if she’d be willing 
to mend me up, clothes and bedding and dish- 
towels, and make a few braided rugs for the floor, 
and knit me some socks. And I said I had more 
milk than I could use, and I’d be obliged if she’d 
take the pay in milk.” 

“ That’s a good idea all round,” approved 
Amos when Timothy told him about it. “ Tur- 
ner needs some new rugs. I know, for I almost 
broke my neck the last time I carried fish into his 
house. Cat heard my horn and came running to 
meet me ; I tried to dodge the cat and caught my 
toe in a hole in the rug; fish went up into the air 
and came right down on the cat’s back. Cat was 


40 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

so scared she jumped, but she came down on the 
fish and stayed there, and Turner had to buy 
some more fish for his dinner. Cheaper for him 
to get a new rug.” 

For some time it had been cold and the ground 
was frozen hard. The roads were jagged with 
wheel ruts. A few days before Christmas came 
the snow. It began in the night, and snowed for 
two days, making the roads and fields one un- 
broken stretch of glistening white that almost put 
out your eyes when the sun shone again. The 
whole of Todd’s Ferry sparkled like a huge 
Christmas card, and the evergreens and the blue 
smoke from the chimneys were the only bits of 
color. Mr. Turner and Grandfather harnessed 
their four yoke of oxen to the big snow-roller, 
and the men of Todd’s Ferry assembled to break 
out the roads. Miss Margaret and the children 
rode on the roller, gathering branches of pine and 
fir to make the Christmas wreaths. 

Grandmother had planned a family Christmas 
for the farmhouse. She and Mother had cooked; 
Trudy and Timothy and Francis had made 
candy; and the men had cracked nuts and shelled 


AND THE TREES 


41 


pop-corn in the evenings. Mr. Johnston had 
had a hand in everything. Of course the Johns- 
tons were coming for Christmas, and Amos and 
Aunt Theresy. Belle would come up after din- 
ner. Her father wanted her at home, to eat 
Christmas dinner with her own family, but 
Trudy had insisted that her chum must spend a 
part of the day with her. And then, in the even- 
ing, there was to be a marvellous tree. 

Just the day before Christmas Mr. Johnston 
walked into the busy kitchen. His face was very 
solemn. He sat down by the sink and never said 
a word. He did not even try to taste of the cake 
that Grandmother was packing away in a jar. 

“ Gracious, brother, what is the matter? ” said 
Miss Margaret. 

“ Santa Claus has a sore throat, and can’t 
speak a loud word ! ” 

“ Oh, isn’t that a shame? Poor Mr. Turner! 
He has that throat trouble almost every winter. 
What will they do? ” 

Mr. Turner had offered to be the Santa Claus 
for the tree at the Town Hall on Christmas night, 
so that Mr. Johnston could have his own celebra- 


42 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

tion with the Todds. The Sunday School ab 
ways had a tree on Christmas night. 

“ Well, they’ll have to get somebody else,” said 
Trudy decidedly. 

Mr. Johnston looked at her. “ They’ve tried,” 
he said, “ but most of the Todd’s Ferry men are 
skinny.” 

“ Let ’em put sofa pillows under their coats,” 
scolded Trudy. “ Oh, I know what you mean. 
They have asked you, and you think you ought 
to do it, and spoil our lovely party. And I think 
it’s mean of Mr. Turner to have a sore throat, so 
there ! ” 

“ Gracious! ” exclaimed Grandfather, who was 
warming his feet at the stove. “ No one has a 
sore throat on purpose. I suppose that house- 
keeper of his is dosing him with onion syrup this 
very minute. I’ve had to take onion syrup. 1 
sympathize with Turner.” 

“ Would it make very much difference if we 
went to that tree and had our things down 
there? ” suggested Francis. “ Then Mr. Johns- 
ton could be Santa Claus, everybody would have 
a good time, and Mr. Turner wouldn’t be worry- 


AND THE TREES 43 

mg. We could have our fun here in the after- 
noon.” 

“ Let’s take some of our things to the Town 
Hall and put them on that tree!” cried Miss 
Margaret. “And we could have our tree, just 
the same, only have it in the afternoon, and then 
nobody would be disappointed.” 

“ Oh, all right, I don’t care.” 

And then everyone was as busy as could be, 
wrapping and tying and marking parcels; and 
when the company came to the farmhouse, early 
on Christmas morning, each one looked as if he 
carried a Santa Claus pack. 

The tree was covered with bundles, white and 
red and green, and more were piled about it on 
the floor. Belle came right after dinner, and as 
soon as the dishes were done, they all gathered in 
the parlor to have their celebration. The tree, 
tall and thick, stood in the corner. After they 
were all seated, from behind it came a thin, 
squeaky voice: 

“I am Jack Frost, a lanky lad, 

I bring you Santa’s greetings glad! 

Poor Santa ’s voice has gone quite dumb, 


44 


TRUDY ; ^42VjD TIMOTHY 


So, in his place, Jack Frost has come! 

Jack Frost, who makes the snowflakes fall 
On fields and trees, and on you all!” 

The voice rose higher and higher behind the 
tree, and a white figure climbed up and up, until 
it stood peering over the topmost branches. Just 
as it spoke the last words, it raised its arms and 
hurled long crinkly white paper streamers over 
everyone. In and out, up and down, they twisted 
and floated, turning and tangling until every- 
body in the room was caught in the paper snow. 
And then the figure spoke again: 

“From north, and south, and east, and west, 

I bring you presents of the best!” 

And then it reached down among the packages 
and began to pick them from the tree. 

“Here, Aunt Theresy, this one is for you! 
Catch ! It feels soft.” 

And it was Amos ! Amos, dressed all in white, 
with a white mask, and a white cotton-wool wig, 
standing on a step-ladder, concealed behind the 
tree. He pulled off his mask. 


45 


AND THE TREES 

“ Don’t blame me,” he begged. “ It was that 
lady over there who made me do it. She made 
me this suit and then bullied me into playing 
Jack Frost. She’s so fond of white herself, she 
had to have some in the celebration. I suppose 
now that I have made such a reputation in mov- 
ing pictures, I shan’t have a week without some- 
one asking me to take part in some kind of theat- 
ricals. See what it is to be famous! ” 

Aunt Theresy had been undoing her parcel. 
It was a lovely knitted shawl, soft gray with a 
white border, from Mother. 

Oh, there were so many things: a whole box 
of preserves for Aunt Theresy from Trudy and 
Timothy and Belle; aprons for Grandmother and 
Mother and Miss Margaret; neckties for the 
men; boxes of candy; and, at last, for Miss Mar- 
garet, another soft bundle that was another 
shawl, but made of white silk with wonderful 
white embroidery on it that made everyone ex- 
claim with admiration. “ Oh, the lovely thing, 
where did it come from?” she cried, and then 
Francis put one arm about her neck. “ My 
mother sent it from Armenia,” he said, “ to the 


46 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

White Lady who takes such good care of her 
boy!” 

And now there were left on the tree only four 
bundles, all alike; flat, oblong and thin they were, 
one for each of the children. Amos tossed them 
all at once. “ Open them together,” he said. “ I 
know what they are, and we only want to hear 
one squeal.” 

They heard it. For the bundles were Wash- 
ington guide-books ! 

“ Yes,” gasped Mr. Johnston after the hugs he 
received, “ I want you to get some idea of the 
place you’re going to visit, and decide what you 
want to see. Study the books, and study the 
map. Learn the location of the principal places. 
I shall be busy while we are there, and not always 
able to go about with you ; but if you prove your- 
selves familiar with the places, and trustworthy, 
you may take some trips without us grown-ups.” 

“ Come on! ” shouted Timothy, rushing for the 
kitchen table, “ let’s do it now! ” 

“ Get pencil and paper, and we’ll each write 
down the things we want to see. Then we can 
compare notes, and decide what to do first.” 


AND THE TREES 


47 


“Oh, Trudy, what a lovely idea!” agreed 
Belle. 

For a little while the grown folks heard no 
sound from the kitchen but the turning of leaves, 
little exclamations of wonder, and Timothy’s 
whistling. When they had picked up all the 
paper and string, and put their gifts into piles to 
take home, they began to wonder what the chil- 
dren were doing, and went out into the kitchen. 

Francis, and Belle, and Trudy were still busily 
writing. Sheets of paper, filled with names and 
words, lay before them, but Timothy sat with his 
hands behind his head, his new guide-book stuffed 
into one pocket, and no paper visible. He was 
staring at the ceiling and whistling softly. He 
seemed very quiet and very happy. 

“ Well, folks,” said Mr. Johnston, “ how are 
you getting on? ” 

“ Pretty well,” replied Francis, “ but it takes 
a long time.” 

“ There is so much to write down,” said Belle. 

“ I haven’t done very much yet,” Trudy smiled 
at him, “ because I have been studying the map, 
trying to find your house.” 


48 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY, 

Timothy said nothing, but whistled the same 
tune over and over. 

“ How about you, Timothy? ” 

“ Oh, I was done a long time ago! ” 

“ Done ! " 

“ Sure — you kids are slow! ” 

“ But how could you do it so quick? ” 

Timothy grinned up at Mr. Johnston, and 
handed him a tiny scrap of crumpled paper that 
he pulled from his pocket. Mr. Johnston glanced 
at it and laughed, and laughed! He laughed so 
long that everyone began to laugh too, without 
knowing why. 

When he could stop, he said, in such a weak 
little voice, “ Timothy, Timothy, you’re all right! 
I’ll do my level best to have you see every single 
thing that you have put down on your list ! ” 

“ What does he want to see? ” they all cried. 

“ I’ll read you his list,” replied Mr. Johnston. 
And he read just one word — “ Everything! ” 
And after that it was time for supper; just a 
hurried lunch, for they were all anxious to get to 
the church tree, and besides, they had made up a 
basket of goodies for poor, sick Mr. Santa Claus 


AND THE TREES 


49 


Turner. Mr. Johnston put on his Santa Claus 
dress at the farmhouse and persuaded Amos to 
go with him and help as Jack Frost, so Amos put 
on the white costume again, and they drove 
around by Mr. Turner's house, and scared his 
housekeeper dreadfully when the two figures ap- 
peared at the door. Poor Mr. Turner wanted to 
laugh, but could only make little crackling sounds 
in his throat. Amos pulled out a package of 
cough drops tied with wide, red ribbon, and 
thrust them in his hand as they hurried away. 

At the Town Hall, Santa and Jack Frost 
waited until the entertainment was over, and then 
raced in the door and down the aisle as if they 
had just arrived from the North Pole and hadn’t 
a minute to stay. Santa told them he was extra 
busy this year, and had to bring Jack Frost along 
as a helper, and Amos bowed very low to right 
and left, and said again, in his squeaky little 
voice: 

“From north, and south, and east, and west, 

We bring you presents of the best!” 

and delivered the gifts, racing and scampering 


50 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

about among the audience, dodging the hands 
that tried to catch him and see who he was. No 
one guessed until, just as the fun was almost 
over, Ben Dobson came into the hall. Amos 
rushed at him with a present and away again, but 
Ben gave a great shout, “ That’s Amos Bean! I 
saw the patch I put on his shoe.” 

So Amos pulled off his mask, and sat down to 
get cool, and Miss Fields began to play the 
organ. Soon the talking stopped, and people 
hummed as she played the tunes they knew. The 
babies went to sleep, but soon the grown-ups and 
the children began to sing, so that Mr. Perkins, 
driving from the station with a belated passenger, 
heard the song coming across the still white snow 
from the lighted church: 

“For Christ is born of Mary, 

And gathered all above, 

While mortals sleep, the angels keep 
Their watch of wondering love. 

0, morning stars, together, 

Proclaim the holy birth ! 

And praises sing to God the King 
And peace to men on earth.’ ’ 


CHAPTER IV 


THE JOURNEY 

The winter term of school began in January, 
and the children were glad to go back. They 
brought their sleds, their skates, and some of 
them came to school on snowshoes. The lake 
was frozen deep, and at recess and after school 
the boys and girls skated, watching their fathers 
cut ice and haul it to their ice-houses for use in 
the summer. The ice was packed in sawdust 
that came from the great piles left by the steam 
sawmill. 

The lumbermen were still at Todd’s Ferry, 
and were chopping down trees and hauling them 
on sleds to the mill. Mr. Perkins had sold part 
of his lower lot to them, but had not yet decided 
whether he would let them cut near Aunt The- 
resy’s land. Belle had told him what Trudy had 
said about trees, and he had said, “ Well, well, 
I’ll see,” but he said it in a very discouraging 
61 


52 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


manner. He seemed much more interested in 
the price he was getting for his trees than in the 
trees which he was destroying. 

The Bird Club was rather dull. Birds were 
scarce, but the members watched, for there was 
always the chance of seeing some cheery little 
winter visitor. Crows were heard often, and the 
merry, friendly chickadees hopped and called in 
the roadside trees. Francis saw some cross-bills 
in Miss Margaret’s garden, and Amos saw a 
flock of snow buntings when he came back from 
Prattville one day. 

The people who were going to Washington in 
the spring were very busy. Belle and Trudy 
were helping their mothers make clothes; Tim- 
othy was forever figuring how much he could see 
with the money he had to spend ; and Francis was 
planning the things he wanted to show the others. 

They planned to go about the first of April. 
“ Washington is lovely in April and early May,” 
said Miss Margaret. “All the trees are so fresh 
and new, the tulips and shrubs in the parks and 
squares are in full bloom, and everybody feels 
happy.” 


AND THE TREES 


53 


“ Yes,” agreed Timothy, “ and if we go then, 
we shall have plenty of time to get our sugar 
made. I’m going to make a lot for Aunt The- 
resy. She’s knitting me some mittens and a muf- 
fler, and I’m going to pay her in sugar.” 

“ Oh,” exclaimed Trudy, “ and the sugar party 
is going to be at our new sap -house this year. 
Mr. Turner and all the scholars are coming! 
And this time Miss Margaret and Mr. Johnston 
won’t be company, they’ll be own folks ! ” 

January passed. February came with gray 
days, and snow squalls and wind, and now and 
then a day of hot sun that melted the snow and 
thinned the ice over the brooks so that you could 
see them rushing along beneath, and watch the 
green watercress swaying and dipping in the cold, 
cold water. One or -two brave robins flew si- 
lently out from the deep woods where they had 
spent the winter. It was splendid sap weather, 
thawing days and freezing nights, and everyone 
got out buckets and drills, and tapped a few trees 
to watch the sap. 

And then, about ten o’clock at night, on the 
very day before Amos and Timothy planned to 


54 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


start real sap-making, Mr. McAdam telephoned 
a telegram to Mr. Johnston. And Mr. Johnston 
called up the Todds and the Perkinses that very 
night — they had to get out of bed to answer the 
call — saying, “ Just got an urgent message call- 
ing me back to Washington. Do you suppose 
you can get the children ready to start the day 
after to-morrow? ” 

Such a scurrying and hurrying as there was 
next day ! Trunks to be packed, unfinished sew- 
ing to be planned, Miss Fields to be told, all the 
good-byes to be said, some over the telephone; a 
last call on Aunt Theresy, and oh, so many things 
to be said to Amos! 

They all talked to him at once until he said, 
“Wait a minute, just one mo-ment, please!” 
and pulled a little memorandum book from his 
pocket, with a stubby pencil. “ Now, go ahead,” 
he ordered. “ Ladies first. What do you say, 
Belle?” 

Belle had brought her clothes up to Trudy’s 
house to pack, for they were to share Mother’s 
trunk. She was going through the room with 
her arms full of dresses. 


AND THE TREES 


55 

“ You write to us every day 4 and tell us every- 
thing.” 

“ Write every day,” repeated Amos, jotting 
that down in his book. 

“Be sure and tend to the maple sugar, and 
give Aunt Theresy all she will take.” 

“ Make maple sugar for Timothy Todd.” 

“ Keep your eye on those old steam sawmill 
men.” 

“ Good idea, Francis. I’ll be sure to do that.” 

“ Don’t let anything happen to anybody, and 
take good care of Snowball and Dilly, and every- 
thing.” 

“ Take care of cats and everybody else. Well, 
it looks as if I should be fairly busy for the next 
few weeks. When do you expect to come home, 
anyway? ” 

But no one could answer that question. It 
was enough to be really going to Washington, 
without planning on coming home. 

Next morning they went. Mr. Perkins drove 
them to the station, and Trudy and Belle cried a 
little when they said “ Good-bye.” Timothy and 
Francis were busy checking the trunks, and could 


56 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


hardly stop to shake hands. The last person 
they saw as the train pulled out from the station 
was Amos, waving his knitted cap. 

After they were settled Trudy opened a little 
note that he had thrust into her hand as the train 
started. She read it aloud. 

“If you want anything on the journey to 
Washington, ask Mr. Porter. He’ll get it for 
you.” 

“Now what does he mean by that? How are 
we going to know Mr. Porter? ” 

Francis and the Johnstons knew, and they 
smiled, but only said, “ Wait and see.” 

They reached Boston a little after noon, and 
drove to the hotel where they were to spend the 
night. Mr. Johnston wanted them to travel in 
the daytime, as he thought they would enjoy see- 
ing the country. 

After dinner they went to the moving pictures, 
and then to supper at a big restaurant. Belle 
and Trudy, sharing the same room at the hotel, 
could hardly go to sleep, they were so excited 
with all the new things. Trudy had never slept 
in a hotel when she lived in Boston, and this was 


57 


AND THE TREES 

Belle’s first journey beyond Concord. It seemed 
so queer to have a telephone in your bedroom, but 
it was even more queer to have it ring early in the 
morning before daylight, and to tumble out of 
bed and climb on a chair to reach the high re- 
ceiver, and to say, “ Hello,” and then to hear a 
pleasant voice say, “ Good-morning, six o’clock, 
please.” 

The Washington train started at nine, and 
there was not much time. They had breakfast in 
the deserted dining-room, with only two or three 
other early parties, and then rode across the city 
to the South Station. 

While Mr. Johnston went for the tickets, the 
others sat in the waiting-room that seemed so big, 
compared to the bit of a one at Todd’s Ferry, and 
watched people rushing for trains or hurrying 
from them to their work, or sitting on the high- 
backed settles like themselves, waiting for friends. 
At the circular booth in the center of the room, 
a man was unpacking lovely roses and violets 
from a long brown box; Francis bought a rose 
for Miss Margaret, and Timothy strolled to an- 
other booth and bought a magazine, “ to read on 


58 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


the train,” he said. And then Mr. Johnston 
came back, beckoning to them, and they picked 
up their grips and hurried out into the train- 
shed. 

They were quite a party, and their six seats 
were all together on one side of the parlor car. 
The green velvet chairs seemed to swallow up 
Belle and Trudy. A person walking in the aisle 
would have thought the chairs empty if it had not 
been for the chattering that came from them. It 
wasn’t very long before the girls were sitting on 
one seat. 

It did seem as if the train would never start, 
and as if all the watches had stopped together. 
But at last they heard the conductor calling, “All 
aboard,” and saw the people on the platform 
waving their hands to the people in the cars, and 
felt the jar as the engine began to move. Then 
the train went faster and faster, and they were on 
the way to Washington at last! 

It was then that they noticed for the first time 
a fat colored man in a white jacket, who came to 
Mr. Johnston, smiling, and said, “ Everyt’ing all 
right, sah? Little folks all comfo’ble, sah? ” and 


AND THE TREES 


59 


heard Mr. Johnston reply, “ Everything is fine, 
thank you, porter.” 

“ Gee,” whispered Timothy to Trudy, “ there 
is your Mr. Porter that Amos meant.” 

All the morning the train rushed on, and they 
sat looking out of the windows. Cities and 
towns, villages and country, great factories and 
little farms whizzed by them; and finally they 
passed through the great city of New York. But 
before that there was the dinner. Breakfast in 
the hotel was not half as much fun as the dinner 
in the dining-car. The porter went through the 
aisle, calling in a loud sing-song voice, “ Din-ner 
— is — now — be-ing — served — in — the — din-ing — 
car!” And Mr. Johnston got up and pulled 
down his coat and said, “Might as well go in now. 
I’m hungry.” 

They followed him through several cars, sway- 
ing and lurching against the seats, and sometimes 
standing flattened against the vestibule walls to 
let others, who had finished dinner, pass them. 
The dining-car had little square tables by broad 
double windows, with heavy high-backed chairs, 
four to a table. More colored men, in white 


60 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY \ 

suits, passed up and down the car, balancing 
trays with food or empty dishes. Belle and 
Trudy and Timothy hardly wanted to eat at first, 
things were so strange, but Miss Margaret, who 
sat at the table with them, ordered their dinner. 
When it came, the train was going very fast in- 
deed, and Timothy said his soup looked like a 
whirlpool. Belle was afraid to try to find her 
mouth, but soon they got used to the motion, and 
thought the dining-car was great fun. 

Timothy wished he might stop in Philadelphia 
to see the Liberty Bell and the Mint, but Mr. 
Johnston said, “Don’t try to do it all at once. 
You’ll have enough to see in Washington; and 
besides, my Uncle Sam has told me to report at 
once, and when that gentleman speaks, we must 
obey.” 

After Philadelphia, the scenery began to 
change. There was no more snow, and as they 
rushed along they saw muddy roads, and a few 
green leaves on some of the trees. More people 
were out-of-doors, and just before dark they saw 
a man ploughing in a field. Then came supper 
in the dining-car, with the curtains drawn and the 


61 


AND THE TREES 

lights lit, and when they went back to their car 
Mr. J ohnston said, “ Timothy, you might read 
your magazine now.” For all you could see in 
the black windows was the reflection of the car 
lights and the seats and the tired people lying 
back in their chairs. But Timothy, who had not 
opened his magazine, shook his head, and said 
sleepily, “No, I don’t feel like reading.” 

“ Everyone take a nap,” suggested Miss Mar- 
garet. “We shan’t reach the city until nearly 
ten, and the porter will wake us in plenty of 
time.” 

“ Good old Mr. Porter,” murmured Timothy, 
snuggling down into the big, soft chair. 

It seemed only a second before someone was 
shaking him by the shoulder, and saying, “ Wake 
up, Timothy, almost into Washington.” 

The word roused him, and he peered out into 
the darkness, shading his eyes with hands pressed 
close to the glass. Nothing but the night, with 
here and there a low street lamp, not as bright 
as the new electric lights at Todd’s Ferry! Now 
and then a street, dimly lighted, with low houses 
on either side. Where was the Washington 


62 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

Monument? Where was the Capitol? Timothy 
had not imagined that there was anything like 
these dingy streets and squatty little houses in 
Washington. 

“ Brush yo’ off, sah? ” said a soft voice behind 
him, and there was the porter, waiting with a 
big whisk broom. Timothy stood uncertainly 
in the swaying train, held out his arms, and 
turned about as the porter brushed his coat. 
Miss Margaret was putting on her hat, and Belle 
and Trudy were all ready to leave the train. 

With a rattle and jar and bump, the train 
stopped. Mr. Johnston said, “Well, here we 
are, come on.” And they followed him out of 
the train, up the long walk, and into the most 
immense room they had ever seen! On either 
side, as far as they could see, the great place 
stretched, and the hundreds of people coming 
from the trains seemed like little ants. Overhead 
the roof rose in wonderful arches, and at either 
end was a beautiful circular window. Why, the 
waiting-room at the Boston South Station was 
like a little closet, compared to this. And Mr. 
Johnston didn’t even stop! ITe only said to the 


AND THE TREES 


63 


man who was carrying their grips, “ Taxi, 
please — to K Street.” 

Miss Margaret said, “ We’re very proud of our 
new station. It is larger than the Capitol,” and 
as they came outside, “ Look, there is the Capitol 
now.” 

They stood perfectly still and looked, saying 
not a word. Straight ahead of them, in the dis- 
tance, glowing with a soft creamy light against 
the dark night, was the Capitol of the United 
States. The children just drew long breaths 
and looked and looked. For the first time, they 
realized that they really had come to Washing- 
ton. And then, in a few minutes, they were in 
the taxi, whirling along streets that were not 
dark like those in the outskirts, and listening to 
Mr. Johnston, and bobbing their heads from side 
to side, trying to see everything that he was 
pointing out to them. “We are on F Street 
now — there is the Pension Building — Depart- 
ment of the Interior ” — and how they stared at 
the big plain building, for that was where the 
Santa Claus man had his office — “ Down to the 
left there you can see the Avenue Here’s 


64 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


the Treasury Building — there’s the White 
House — State, War and Navy Building — drive 
down 18th Street, driver — here we are! ” 

And they stopped craning their necks to look 
at a large red-brick house on a corner, with two 
sets of four or five broad, stone steps leading up 
to its front doors. “ It’s a double house,” ex- 
plained Mr. Johnston. “We live in this side, 
and look out on two streets.” One of the doors 
was brightly lighted. There was a large yard, 
with grass and shrubs, just budding into leaf, and 
in the windows were long attractive window- 
boxes. 

“ Come,” said Miss Margaret, happily, “ come 
right in, dears. This is home.” 


CHAPTER VI 


WASHINGTON 

On the train, Miss Margaret had been telling 
them a little about her Washington home. “ You 
know,” she said, “ you will find a good many 
things different from Todd’s Ferry, but I think 
you will like it all. There won’t be the great 
green fields and high hills, and the houses may 
seem very close together, but there are plenty of 
outdoor places and I know you will find enough 
to keep you busy. I do hope you won’t be home- 
sick.” 

For a minute they had thought she was in 
earnest, but Belle leaned over and looked in her 
eyes and saw the twinkle, so she replied, “ If we 
should be homesick, I suppose you could put us 
on the train and send us home.” 

“And you must get used to colored people,” 
65 


66 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


Miss Margaret continued; “ our cook is colored; 
her name is Ardelia, and she is very tall and 
thin; she has been with us for years and years. 
We couldn’t think of parting with Ardelia.” 

“ Bob is black, too,” said Mr. Johnston, turn- 
ing his chair around, “ almost as black as the 
horses he drives.” 

“ Does Mr. Johnston drive horses? ” whispered 
Belle to Trudy. “ Doesn’t he have an auto- 
mobile? ” 

“ I don’t think so. I’ve heard Miss Margaret 
say he was very proud of his carriage and pair of 
horses.” 

With all these things in mind, the children 
waited eagerly for Ardelia to open the door. 
They imagined just how she looked. 

And then the door swung open, and all they 
could see was a great expanse of white dress 
filling the whole doorway, with two black hands 
stretched out in welcome, and the happiest, 
j oiliest black face, with a smile that was all shin- 
ing white teeth. 

“Why, Susie Pearl!” cried Miss Margaret. 
“ You here? Where’s Ardelia? ” 


AND THE TREES 


67 


“ Yas’m, Miss Margaret, I’se heah. Aunt 
Ardelia, she got word f’um her sister what’s sick 
an’ she had to kite right off to Alexandra, an’ I 
come over to cook for you-alh I’se right glad 
to see yo’ back. An’ here’s the chillun — Ardelia 
tole me about the chillun. Come in, I’se got a 
nice hot supper fo’ you.” 

They went into a long hall, with wide folding 
doors opening at either side into square pleasant 
rooms; the stairs were directly in front. 

“ Come up-stairs,” said Miss Margaret. 
“ Your rooms are on the third floor. Belle and 
Trudy will have the front one, and the boys can 
sleep at the back. Brother and I have rooms on 
the second floor.” 

Up the long flight of stairs, into another hall 
like the one below, up the second flight, and 
there were the rooms where they were to live 
for weeks and weeks. They did seem so queer. 
Big rooms with windows set deeply into the walls 
and inside blinds; “wooden shutters” Susie 
Pearl called them when she closed them and 
snapped on the lights. 

“ Susie Pearl will get you anything you want,” 


68 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

said Miss Margaret. “ Wash quickly and come 
down-stairs. You will have to get used to run- 
ning up and down stairs if you live in Washing- 
ton,” she added, laughing. 

At first the girls were shy with Susie Pearl, 
but it was impossible not to make friends. She 
was so jolly and so interested in everything. “ I 
reckon t’ings is strange to you-all. This the 
first time yo’ ever been in Washin’ton? Well, I 
nevah been up No’th yet. I don’ like the cold 
weather.” 

“ Oh, you’d love it if you got used to it. We 
have the greatest sport, skating and sliding, and 

making maple sugar in the spring ” Trudy 

stopped, for just then she saw, instead of the 
strange room, the new sap-house with its green- 
stained shingles, the path leading to the wood 
road, and Mother and Father and Grandmother 
coming up the path — and she was just going to 
be homesick when she heard the voice of her 
Santa Claus man, “Aren’t you children ever com- 
ing down? I’ve been into the kitchen, and there 
are Potomac River oysters swimming in a stew, 
just longing to be eaten! ” 


AND THE TREES 69 

“Oh!” cried Francis. “Oyster stew! I 
haven’t had one for ages.” 

“ Heah’s yo’ crutches, Master Francis.” 

“ Don’t use them much now* Susie. I’m 
almost well.” 

After supper they were all too tired to do more 
than unpack just a bit and tumble into bed. It 
seemed noisy at first, with the automobiles rush- 
ing by, but even the strangeness could not keep 
them awake. 

Early in the morning Belle heard Susie Pearl’s 
voice on the sidewalk. 

“ Ma goodness, that’s shuah a big box. Bring 
it right in yeah.” 

She ran to the window, but could only see an 
express wagon. “ Wake up, Trudy,” she called. 
“ Look out the window.” 

They looked out into the bare tree branches. 
There were trees everywhere, and even now the 
buds were swelling, although it was not quite the 
first of March. Across the wide street, bordered 
with parkings of grass between sidewalk and 
roadway, was a large apartment house; beside it 
was a tiny shabby cottage where colored children 


70 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


played in the cluttery yard; beyond were other 
fine dwellings. It seemed so odd to see the little 
house, but later they learned that such cabins 
were all over Washington, even near the grand 
embassies; the owners, colored people who had 
owned the land for years, refused to sell. 
“ Squatters,” Mr. Johnston said. 

“ Isn’t it great? ” said Trudy. “ Let’s hurry 
down-stairs.” 

They met the boys in the hall. “ Listen,” 
shouted Timothy, all excitement, “ what do you 
suppose we can see from our window? The 
Naval Radio Station at Arlington, and it looks 
just like the masts of ships at sea. And they 
have talked with the Eiffel Tower in Paris; 
Francis says so.” 

They found Mr. Johnston waiting. In a min- 
ute Miss Margaret called from below, “ Brother, 
do you know anything about this box? ” 

“ What box?” 

“ This box from Todd’s Ferry.” 

That brought them all to the basement. 
There stood a big wooden box, plainly marked 
for Mr. Johnston. 


71 


AND THE TREES 

“ I don’t know what it can be,” replied the 
Santa Claus man. “ I did not send it.” 

Francis was looking at Timothy, but Timothy 
had heard Belle laugh under her breath. 

“ Open it,” he cried. “ I’ll bet Belle knows 
about it.” 

“ Open it,” said Belle. 

And when the cover was off, there were two 
dozen jars of the exhibit that had won the trip to 
Washington for Miss Belle Perkins. 

“ I wanted you to have them,” said Belle, “ so 
Father packed them and sent them along as soon 
as we knew we were coming.” 

“ Look, Susie Pearl,” said Miss Margaret. 
“ This little girl made them all herself.” 

Susie Pearl took them out with cries of admira- 
tion. 

“ And Trudy made lots, too,” said Timothy. 

“And Timothy here finished her work when 
she burned her arms and could not do any more,” 
Francis went on eagerly. 

“Aw, what did you tell that for? ” shouted 
Timothy, chasing him out the door. 

After breakfast, Miss Margaret had a plan. 


72 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

She would unpack the trunks and get settled, 
while the children could go to market with Susie 
Pearl. There would be lots of supplies to buy, 
and they could each take a basket and bring them 
home. 

“ I have to go to the Bureau of Agriculture,” 
said Hr. Johnston, “ but I’ll see you at dinner. 
Take them down through Lafayette Square, 
Susie, so they can see the White House.” 

They walked out K Street to a wide street 
that Susie Pearl said was Connecticut Avenue. 
“All the Avenues are named fo’ states,” she told 
them. “ New Hampshire Avenue is only fo’ 
blocks up f om the house. You can go up there 
this afternoon if yo’ want to.” 

At the next street they saw a great statue of 
a man, with four bronze cannon at the corners 
of the pedestal. 

“Admiral Farragut,” said Susie Pearl. “ See 
— he’s a-holdin’ his telescope, just like he used 
to stan’ on the deck of his ship an’ look fo’ 
trouble.” 

But the children had already caught a glimpse 
of the trees in Lafayette Square and were hurry- 



THEY WERE REALLY LOOKING AT THE WHITE HOUSE 





AND THE TREES 


78 


ing ahead. They scampered through the paths, 
and there, just across the street, was the beautiful 
White House ! They were really looking at the 
White House . There were the high pillars of 
the portico; there were the long windows; it 
was just like the picture in the guide-books. 
“ That’s the East Room, over that side,” whis- 
pered Timothy. “ Isn’t it, Susie Pearl? ” 

“ It sho’ is,” she answered, staring across at 
the entrance. 4 ‘An’ yo’ see that carriage standin* 
in front of the do’? See the driver-man with 
the red, white an’ blue cockade on his hat? 
That’s the President’s carriage. See those men 
waitin’? See the folks standin’ on the sidewalk? 
Looks to me mighty like the President goin’ come 
out pretty soon.” 

“ Oh! ” gasped the children. 

“ We’ll just cross ovah, and prospect a bit an’ 
see what happens.” 

They crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, and stood 
by one of the big gates. Timothy was as quiet 
as a mouse, but he never took his eyes from the 
great dark doors. Suddenly they opened, 
and 


74 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

“ There he is! ” cried Timothy. “ There’s the 
President! ” 

A stout, pleasant-looking man paused in the 
doorway a moment, then came down the steps to 
the waiting carriage. He spoke to the driver. 
The carriage started toward the gate where the 
children waited. The stout fair man looked at 
the people who were watching him; he saw the 
four children leaning eagerly forward, and 
then — the pleasantest friendly smile broke over 
his face. He leaned forward and, as the carriage 
slowly passed, he lifted his hat and greeted 
them. 

Timothy’s cap was off in an instant. Francis 
raised his hat. The girls bowed shyly. Not one 
of the children could help returning that friendly 
smile. Then the carriage was turning into the 
Avenue, and it was over. They all drew long 
breaths. 

“ Where can I buy some postal cards? ” 
Timothy demanded. “ I must write to Amos 
that the President of the United States bowed 
to me the very first day I was in Washington! ” 

“Isn’t it wonderful, Belle?” said Trudy. 


AND THE TREES 75 

“ My knees are just shaking I’m so excited. I 
never dreamed he’d speak to us, did you? ” 

“ I guess my father will be proud when I tell 
him about it.” 

Said Francis, “ Perhaps there will be a recep- 
tion while we are here. Then we could all go, 
and shake hands with him. But, look at that ! ” 
They looked where he pointed. Up, up, into 
the clear blue sky, over the feathery branches of 
the hundreds of budding trees, a white shining 
shaft rose, tall and graceful. 

“ The Washington Monument,” said Trudy. 
“ Oh, isn’t it beautiful! ” 

“Isn’t it high?” Timothy cried. “Let’s go 
up there this afternoon.” 

“ Heah’s our car,” said Susie Pearl, “ an’ we- 
all must get to mahket, or eve’ything will be 
sold.” 

They rode down grand Pennsylvania Avenue 
to Seventh Street and walked to the Market, a 
great building like three sides of a square, full 
of little stores, “ Stalls,” Susie Pearl said they 
were called, where you could buy meats and 
fruits and groceries — everything you could 


76 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

possibly want to eat. And besides the things to 
eat were the quantities of wonderful flowers. 
They walked over the sawdust-covered floor, fol- 
lowing Susie Pearl who hurried from stall to 
stall, buying from dealers who seemed to know 
her and to have exactly what she wanted. Soon 
their baskets were full of bundles. So many 
other people were there too, all with their baskets, 
all marketing and all talking to each other. 
Susie Pearl said they all came every day. 

“ Come outside,” said Susie at last. “ I want 
to get some things f’om the carts.” 

Outside the Market, in rickety stalls against 
the walls, were many colored people, selling the 
produce of their little farms near by. Their carts, 
which had brought the goods to market, stood in 
the cobble-paved street while the horses, unhar- 
nessed, rested and ate their breakfast. Some of 
the people were cooking their own breakfasts 
over little stoves while others were eating from 
lunch-baskets. 

“ Virginia folks what drives in eve’y mawn- 
in\” said Susie Pearl. “ Come ovah heah. I 
got some things ordered f’om this man.” 


AND THE TREES 


77 


Across the street they could see trees and trees 
and trees, just beginning to turn green, and 
grass and long stretches of walks and paths. 

“ What’s that place? ” asked Timothy. 

“ That’s the Mall — there’s the New National 
Museum right across. Yo’ mus’ go in there an’ 
see all the animals what Pres’ dent Roosevelt 
done shoot in Africa and b’ing home for the 
Government.” 

“ Let’s go there this afternoon,” said Timothy. 

“ Let’s walk home through the Mall,” sug- 
gested Trudy. 

“ Walk — walk ” said Susie Pearl in amaze- 
ment; “I reckon you-all don’ know how long 
these Washington walks are. Nobody walks in 
Washington ’cept the tourists.” 

“ Well,” said Timothy, very decidedly, “ I’m 
going to walk till I find a place to buy post- 
cards. I’m going to write post-cards this after- 
noon.” 

How they all laughed. “Anything else you’re 
planning to do this afternoon, Timothy? ” said 
Francis. “ You’re going to stay here more than 
one day, you know.” 


78 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY^ 

“ Well, I don’t want to miss anything.” 

“ Susie,” said Francis, “ why can’t the girls 
go home with you, and Timothy and I will get 
some post-cards? I know where we can buy 
some cheap.” 

“ Get some for us, will you? ” said Trudv. 

“ Sure.” 

And in a couple of days Mr. McAdam found 
picture post-cards from Washington in the mail 
of nearly everyone in Todd’s Ferry, telling that 
the President had bowed to the children. Amos 
had five and carried them in his coat pocket, 
showing them at every house on his fish route. 
And when he got home that night he read them 
all over again, and then he sat for a long time 
thinking about his friends so far away from the 
New Hampshire hills; thinking about the good 
times they were having; thinking about the maple 
sugar orchard that he and Father would have all 
to themselves with no boys and girls to help them. 

And suddenly he sighed, and then his eyes be- 
gan to twinkle, and he laughed and slapped his 
knee and said, “ By George, I’ll do it! ” 


CHAPTER VI 


A REMINDER OF TODD'S FERRY 

“ We haven’t seen Donald yet,” said Trudy 
at breakfast next morning. 

“ I think he will be over to-day,” replied Miss 
Margaret. “ His mother telephoned while you 
were at the market. He is in school now, and 
quite busy with his studies.” 

“We must have some of the friends in to meet 
the children,” added Mr. J ohnston. “ I want 
them to meet some of our Washington friends.” 

“ I know the postman now. He told me the 
New Hampshire letters generally come on the 
afternoon mail.” 

“ Oh, Timothy, do you suppose we will get any 
letters to-day? ” 

Belle had sent her mother a postal the day be- 
fore, and was already looking for an answer. 
But it was two or three days later before the 
Todd’s Ferry mail came. And wasn’t it wel- 
79 


80 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

come! There were letters from home, and some 
from the school children, and one card from 
Amos. He did not like to write letters, but 
there was quite a good deal of news on the card. 
It said, in funny crampled, round writing, “ Dear 
Friends: Yr. card rec’d. Thanks. Sap run- 
ning fine. Lumbermen slaughtering trees. 
Todd’s Ferry very lonely. All well. Yrs. truly, 
A. Bean.” 

They showed the postal to Donald when he 
came, for it was nearly a week before they saw 
him. Donald was Miss Margaret’s and Mr. 
Johnston’s nephew who had spent one summer 
in Todd’s Ferry. He had grown more than 
Timothy in the year and a half since then. His 
black hair was still curly but he wore it cut short 
and was trying to make it smooth and shiny. He 
was much more interested in his own affairs than 
in any news from the country, and talked a great 
deal about his school, and the football team, and 
his dancing school and the girls he met there. 

“ I suppose you’ll chase all around, and do 
everything that everybody does who comes to 
Washington,” he said. “ If I wasn’t so busy, I 


AND THE TREES 


81 


could show you lots of things. I’ll take you to 
dancing school some day, but I won’t sit outside 
the Monument with the tourists, or climb to the 
dome of the Capitol.” 

“ You needn’t,” said Timothy. “ I know 
where the Monument is, and when you can go up, 
and how many stairs there are, and I’ll take the 
girls any time they want to go. I asked the 
policeman at the White House.” 

“ What? ” 

“ Why, Timothy Todd, when did you do 
that?” 

“ How did you ever dare speak to him? ” 

“ W ell, I’ve been exploring a little in the 
neighborhood, and I walked down to see if I 
could see the President again, and that policeman 
looked all right so I just asked him if the Presi- 
dent would be likely to be going out that morn- 
ing, and we got to talking, and I told him who I 
was and where I was staying, and he said he knew 
'Mr. Johnston and then he gave me a lot of in- 
formation, and said, ‘ Come and have a chat 
whenever you’re down this way,’ and I said I 
would.” 


82 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


Donald was rather impressed at this, but in a 
few minutes he said, “ I’ll take you out to Fort 
Myer next Friday to see the cavalry drill. I 
don’t have to go to school Friday afternoon, and 
my father can always get tickets for the drill. 
It’s fun to see the horses.” 

‘‘Aw, Miss Margaret,” Susie Pearl’s voice 
came up the stairs. “ There’s another box come 
f’om that Todd’s Ferry place. Will I open 
it?” 

Timothy was down the stairs, three at a time. 
Francis was not far behind him. Donald 
dragged slowly after the others. He would not 
admit that he cared anything about the box, but 
really he was curious to see what might be in it. 

There it stood, in the lower hall, a square 
wooden box, addressed to Mr. Johnston and 
marked, “ From A. Bean, Todd’s Ferry, N. H.” 

“ Oh,” cried Belle, “ look on the side. It’s one 
of Mr. McAdam’s boxes. It came from the 
store. What do you suppose it is? ” 

Susie Pearl came from the kitchen with a ham- 
mer and a chisel, and the boys made short work 
of cover and nails. Under a layer of newspapers 


AND THE TREES 


83 


were two tin pails and two oblong cans, but even 
before they were visible the children had sniffed 
the contents 

“ Maple sugar — maple syrup ” 

“ Good for Amos! He’s all right! ” 

“ From the new sap-house, I’ll bet.” 

“ Oh, goody-goody, there, aren’t you glad 
you’re here, Donald? ” 

“ Get some dishes, Susie Pearl,” said Miss 
Margaret. “ We’ll all have a taste, this very 
minute.” 

They were so busy and excited they did not 
hear Mr. Johnston’s key in the door, or his foot- 
steps on the stairs. He stood in the dining-room 
door, watching them. And then he clapped his 
hands. 

“ My party! ” he said. “ Just in time for my 
party. I shall now give a sugar party right here 
in Washington. I know you have all been think- 
ing about Mr. Turner’s maple sugar party, and 
wishing you were there, but a sugar party in 
Washington, D. C., will be much more original. 
I believe Amos sent this on purpose so we could 
have one. We’ll ask the New Hampshire Club, 


84 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

Margaret* and have a real, honest-to-goodness 
good time.” 

“ You can’t have sugar-cakes on the snow,” 
objected Timothy, “because there isn’t any snow. 
The policeman told me there hadn’t been much 
this season, and it was too late for any more.” 

“ My Santa Claus man can do anything,” said 
Trudy, running over to hug him. 

“ Good for you,” he said. “ Santa Claus 
ought to be able to make snow if anyone can, 
especially when his friend Jack Frost sends him 
the sugar for the cakes.” 

So the invitations went out for a maple sugar 
party at the Johnston house, and the Washington 
people accepted as gladly as the people of Todd’s 
Ferry. Everyone came who possibly could, and 
Donald was the first one there. Grown folks 
and children — people from New Hampshire who 
were living in Washington — came; they were all 
glad to see the children from Todd’s Ferry, and 
asked all kinds of questions. Soon everyone was 
chattering with his neighbor. Timothy did not 
hear Mr. Johnston when he greeted a very tall 
man with a long, scraggly white beard and keen 


AND THE TREES 


85 


blue eyes. The man was shaking hands with the 
guests when Trudy noticed him. 

“ Oh, who is that tall man? ” she said. 

“ He’s somebody,” answered Donald, “ but I 
forget who. I’ve seen him at the Capitol.” 

Timothy turned. “ That’s our Representa- 
tive,” he said. “ I saw him at the hotel in Con- 
cord when I went with Grandfather to put my 
money in the bank. They call him ‘ The Tall 
Pine of New Hampshire ’ — and see that man 
just coming in? He’s our Senator.” 

Another man was greeting Miss Margaret. 
He was large too, but more carefully dressed, and 
very courteous and polite. 

“ Goodness,” whispered Belle, “ the Santa 
Claus man knows some pretty important people, 
doesn’t he? ” 

“ I guess he does,” said Francis. “ He quite 
often goes to the White House to see the Presi- 
dent.” 

“ Trudy,” called Mr. Johnston, who was talk- 
ing to a group of men clustered about the Sen- 
ator, “ come over here. Bring Belle and Tim- 
othy. I want you.” 


86 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY* 


“ Senator,” he said, “ these are the children 
from Todd’s Ferry of whom I was speaking; 
they all three won this trip to Washington by 
excellence in canning and preserving, and they 
are pretty good little citizens, on the whole.” 

“ I should say so,” agreed the Senator. “ I 
wonder if they wouldn’t be interested in seeing 
the Senate. I shall be pleased to send them 
cards to the Members’ Gallery.” 

“ I know what you’re up to,” laughed Mr. 
Johnston, as the Senator wrote the children’s 
names in his note-book. “ You want to get them 
to vote for you when they’re grown up.” 

“ We New Hampshire people must stand by 
each other.” And to the children he said, “ You 
keep up your interest in Todd’s Ferry, and I 
promise to help you whenever I can.” 

“ Oh,” exclaimed Timothy, “ you’d better not 
say that if you don’t mean it, because there’s lots 
of improvements needed in the town, my grand- 
father says.” 

“ Let me know what they are. I’m not a bit 
frightened,” the Senator called back as he went 
out to get some maple sugar. For Mr. Johnston 


AND THE TREES 


87 


was inviting his guests down to the kitchen, where 
Susie Pearl, in a spick and span white dress, 
stood stirring something on the stove. She was 
so fat that she hid the kettles and most of the 
stove, but the New Hampshire folks just sniffed 
— and sniffed again — and said, “ Oh, this year’s 
maple syrup ! ” and crowded about the stove. 

And then Mr. Johnston and the men and boys 
went out in the back hall and came back with 
pans of cracked ice — one for each person. They 
filed back into the dining-room, and Trudy and 
Belle passed about forks and spoons, just as they 
did at Mr. Turner’s party in the woods, only in- 
stead of dropping the hot syrup into fresh-fallen 
snow under great bare trees, they dropped it into 
the cracked ice, and then picked the sticky cakes 
out with their forks. It was all new to Francis 
and Donald, but they did not seem to need much 
instruction. There were doughnuts to eat, too, 
and hot coffee. When no one could make an- 
other cake, Mr. Johnston said, “ Shall we go into 
the living-room? ” but the answer was “ No, let’s 
stay here — it’s so cozy.” They all helped clear 
away the dishes while the men talked, and some 


88 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


of the ladies said, “ We will help Susie Pearl,” 
and the children helped too, so that really this 
was the best of the whole party. 

They wrote a family letter to Amos telling him 
what a wonderful time they had with his syrup 
and sugar; each person wrote a page, so he had a 
long letter to show in Todd’s Ferry. But he 
only sent a card in reply, as short as the other. 

Mr. Johnston had decided he was getting 
rather fat, so instead of driving to the Depart- 
ment of the Interior, where he had his office, he 
walked, and Timothy and Francis formed the 
habit of walking part way with him. They al- 
ways went through Lafayette Square, and usu- 
ally stopped at the White House gate on the way 
back for a chat with the policeman. 

One day they came racing home in great ex- 
citement. “ Hurry, girls, and come with us. 
We can go into the White House this morning. 
Our policeman says there’s a big party going 
through, and we’d better be there.” 

He was waiting for them. Timothy intro- 
duced the girls. “ Go right around to the east 
door,” he said, “ and follow the crowd. Oh, and 


AND THE TREES 89 

when you get a chance give this note to the 
guide.” 

The girls thought Timothy was only doing an 
errand for his friend, but they did not see Francis 
wink, nor Timothy solemnly wink back. 

They went into the basement corridor, pressing 
as close as they could to the man who was acting 
as guide. 

“ The portraits on this corridor,” he was say- 
ing to the tourists, “ are those of the ladies who 
have ruled at the White House. If you will fol- 
low me up-stairs, we will now visit the East 
Room, used for State receptions. Notice, please, 
the gold piano, which cost fifteen thousand dol- 
lars, and the crystal chandeliers.” 

In the immense East Room, the children wan- 
dered and admired everything. From their 
guide-books they were able to look for the things 
they preferred — the wonderful ceiling of white 
and gold, the gold-colored velvet draperies at the 
long windows, the huge China vases and the bro- 
caded seats at the sides of the room. And the 
floor — so smooth that they were almost afraid to 
step on it. 


90 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


Timothy watched his chance, and slipped the 
note into the guide’s hand. “ Oh, yes,” whis- 
pered the man. “ You wait in the corridor a 
minute after the rest go. I’ll fix it.” 

“ Wait here after the tourists go,” whispered 
Timothy to the mystified Trudy and Belle. 

As the crowd of sight-seers disappeared down 
the broad staircase, a man, summoned by the 
guide, approached the children. “ Come with 
me,” he said, smiling pleasantly; “ you have per- 
mission to see the other rooms in the building.” 

“ Oh, thank you,” gasped Trudy, remembering 
her manners at the last minute, just as the man 
opened the doors of gorgeous stained glass that 
shut the rest of the White House away from the 
entrance hall. And then they were walking into 
the White House! Really walking where the 
President and his family walked; they were see- 
ing the Blue Room with its oval walls covered 
with blue corded silk instead of wall-paper; the 
Red Room where red velvet made wall coverings 
and draperies. Here the man turned to the girls, 
saying, “ Come over and look in this cabinet. 
Girls like these things.” And there were seven 


AND THE TREES 


91 


Japanese dolls, beautifully dressed, that he said 
had been presented to Mrs. Roosevelt by the 
Japanese Minister. Trudy liked the Green 
Room best, but the State Dining-Room was won- 
derful, with its huge table that would seat one 
hundred guests. In every room were beautiful 
chandeliers, and so many lovely pieces of furni- 
ture, ornaments, china and glass that it was al- 
most impossible to remember them all. 

“ The President’s Room and the Cabinet 
Room are in the wing, in the Executive Office,” 
explained their guide. “ I’m sorry you can’t see 
them, but the President is having a meeting there, 
and ” 

“Well!” interrupted Timothy, “I feel as if 
I’d been visiting him all the morning. I think it 
was just great of you to show us all around like 
this.” 

“ Yes,” added Belle. “ We certainly do thank 
you.” 

“ Oh, that’s all right,” said the man. “ I’ve 
enjoyed it myself.” 

Outside the policeman was waiting for them. 
“ Did you deliver my note? ” he said. 


92 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY ] 

And how they talked. “ Well,” he said, “ I’m 
glad you were pleased. If I should ever come to 
the country, no doubt there would be lots of 
things you could show me.” 

Miss Margaret had been busy, but now the 
house was all settled, everything running 
smoothly, and she proposed some really truly 
sight-seeing. “ J ust as if we were tourists,” she 
said. “ You may decide what you want to see, 
and I’ll be the guide. We will get lunch down 
town, and make regular days of it. We will go 
every other day, and that will give you time to 
rest and write up your journals.” 

For each of the children was keeping a journal 
of the Washington trip. Each had bought a 
blank book as soon as he arrived. Trudy and 
Belle were illustrating theirs with post-cards, but 
Timothy was taking snap-shots for his, and leav- 
ing places for them as he went along. Francis 
was writing more about Trudy and Timothy and 
Belle and the good times he was able to have with 
them, than about the sights of Washington. He 
was going to send his journal to his father and 
mother, in far-away Armenia. Belle was buy- 


AND THE TREES 


93 


ing post-cards of everything she saw, and sending 
them home to her father. 

“ You know,” she explained, “ Pa’s great on 
collections. He gave me some money to use for 
cards. Pa has a collection of postage stamps, 
and evenings he gets them out and enjoys looking 
them over. He’s going to buy a special book for 
this Washington collection, and I’m going to 
write something in it about each card.” 


CHAPTER VII 


SIGHT-SEEING 

Next day they started on a real sight-seeing 
trip. “ We’ll begin at the Monument,” said 
Miss Margaret. “ The first elevator goes up at 
nine, and that will give us a nice early start.” 

“ I’ve been up the Monument three times,” 
said Timothy, “ so I can show you all the points 
of interest from the top.” 

“ Then we will go into the National Museum.” 

“ And the Fish Commission, and the Capitol, 
and the Congressional Library!” 

The children had not yet visited many of the 
public buildings, but they had taken many drives 
with Bob and the pair of black horses; leisurely 
drives about this wonderful city of trees which 
were so swiftly putting forth little green leaves 
every day. Bob had shown them lovely vistas of 
streets and parks, stopping the horses and letting 
94 


AND THE TREES 


95 


the children look as long as they wished. He 
had pointed out the different legations, many of 
them with porticos over the doors. “And what 
do you think,” Francis had said, “ the ground un- 
der those porticos is just the same as if it were 
really in the foreign countries. If somebody was 
escaping and ran under the portico, it would be 
just the same as if he had gone to China, or Eng- 
land, or Spain; that is, if he belonged to that 
country. He could claim his country’s protec- 
tion.” 

They had looked wonderingly at the little 
patch of pavement that did not seem any differ- 
ent from the sidewalk about it. 

They had driven out to lovely Arlington, and 
walked soberly between the rows and rows of sol- 
diers’ graves ; they had stood on the steps of the 
Mansion between the massive pillars, and 
watched, across the Potomac, the Monument, 
white and shining in the sun. They had been 
getting acquainted with Washington. 

So, to-day, they all started briskly for the 
Monument. They found a large party of tour- 
ists sitting on the benches about the base, waiting 


96 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

for the elevator, while others walked about, look- 
ing at their guide-books and making notes in lit- 
tle books or taking snap-shots with all kinds of 
cameras. Soon they were in the elevator with its 
barred sides, riding slowly up — up — up, while 
every few minutes they could see through the 
openings great white figures painted on the 
framework that told how high they were. “ Two 

hundred feet — three hundred fifty feet ” 

The girls gasped. And then they were out in 
the corridor, waiting their chance to lean on the 
deep-silled windows, and look at the trees so far 
below that they seemed like thin, green moss, at 
the people like specks, and at automobiles and 
cars like tiny toys. Miss Margaret and Francis 
went down in the elevator, but the children 
walked down the short flights of stairs, broken by 
landings where they saw memorial stones set in 
the walls by different States and organizations. 
“ Needn’t bother to count the steps,” Timothy 
said carelessly. “ There’s nine hundred, just as 
the guide-book says. I’ve counted them.” 

From the Monument they walked through the 
Agricultural Grounds and the grounds of the 


97 


AND THE TREES 

Smithsonian Institute. They looked at the great 
red building, with its nine towers, with much in- 
terest when Mjss Margaret explained to them 
that here was the Department which was trying 
all the time to learn more about every kind of 
human knowledge; that sent men to the far cor- 
ners of the earth to study people and animals, 
earthquakes, and sun and stars; and that the 
building itself had been given to the United 
States by an Englishman, J ames Smithson, who 
never saw America, but who wanted to help 
Americans to greater and better knowledge. 

“ We will go in some day and see the collection 
of birds and butterflies,” she told them, “ but now 
come over to the New National Museum. There 
is something there the boys will like. Girls, too, 
I hope. I like it tremendously myself.” 

In the New National Museum, so different 
from the older one, with its shining white walls 
and pillars, Miss Margaret walked swiftly from 
room to room until at a certain place she stopped, 
saying, “ Go right ahead.” 

Timothy hurried on — then stopped suddenly. 
Belle screamed, then clapped her hand over her 


98 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


mouth, shrinking back by Miss Margaret; in a 
moment they went on again, but still half-afraid, 
for facing them and staring directly at them with 
fierce green eyes, was a mighty lion, standing on 
a sandy hillock, and protecting the lioness who 
crouched before him, drinking eagerly from the 
water-hole. Another lioness lay with out- 
stretched paws, and two cubs sat watching behind 
their mother. 

“ My goodness,” breathed Belle, “ I thought 
they were real! ” 

Timothy walked forward to touch them, but 
his hand came in contact with clear, invisible 
plate glass. And then they noticed the other 
groups; the deer, and the great square-lipped 
rhinoceros, feeding on grass that seemed as if it 
must be growing in real earth, each group so 
marvellously arranged that it was almost impos- 
sible to believe that you were not looking at live 
animals. 

“ This is the Roosevelt collection that Susie 
Pearl told us about,” said Trudy. “ Isn’t it, 
Miss Margaret? ” 

“Yes, and I love it. And some day we will 


AND THE TREES 99 

go to the Zoo and see real animals. Oh, I want 
to show you my polar bear.” 

They ate their lunch in the park, and then Miss 
Margaret said, “ Brother wants me to bring you 
to the office. We’ll take the Seventh Street car 
and go up there now.” 

On the steps of the ugly, plain building the 
Santa Claus man was watching for them. 

“ Not much of a place to look at on the out- 
side,” he said, “ but to my mind there’s no more 
important building in the United States. Per- 
haps I’m prejudiced because I’m so interested in 
the work, but come and see anyway. This build- 
ing is a good deal like Grandmother’s attic — you 
can find almost anything you want here. But 
the thing I’m going to show you is how Uncle 
Sam — Uncle Sam, U. S. A., not Uncle Sammy 
Todd, Timothy — takes care of his wood-lot.” 

As they walked through the corridors and 
rooms, he continued, “ You know that there is a 
great deal of land owned by the Government in 
each State, but most of it is in the West. This 
land is called the public domain. In 1891 Con- 
gress passed a law allowing the President to set 


100 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

aside some of this land as forest reservations. A 
good deal of valuable land has been sold very 
cheaply, but after awhile the Government waked 
up to the fact that forests were not going to last 
forever, unless they had help. And people had 
used the public domain as if the land belonged to 
them ; some had cut timber, others had put cattle 
and sheep out to graze, and when this land was 
taken by the Government they were angry. But 
President Roosevelt — and you’ve just seen the 
animals he brought from Africa, haven’t you? — 
devoted a great deal of time and thought to the 
forestry question, and took enormous tracts of 
land for reservations. Now the Department 
of National Parks keeps pretty busy taking 
care of these tracts, and I’m helping as best I 
can.” 

“Are there any in New Hampshire?” de- 
manded Timothy. 

“ Part of the White Mountains is a govern- 
ment reservation.” 

“ Any in Todd’s Ferry ? ” 

“ No.” 

“Oh!” 


AND THE TREES 


101 


“ Here we are,” said Mr. Johnston proudly, 
opening a dopr. “ Walk in.” 

The clerks in the room looked up with welcom- 
ing smiles. They seemed as glad to see Mr. 
Johnston as ever were the people in Todd’s 
Ferry to greet their Santa Claus man. 

“ Come, friends,” he called to them. “ Come 
and meet the delegation from Todd’s Ferry, New 
Hampshire.” 

The clerks came to greet the children. “ The 
little friends I’ve talked so much about,” he said, 
14 moth-destroyers, canners, preservers, tree en- 
thusiasts, — just show them everything.” 

So, with one and another of the men and 
women who worked with Mr. Johnston for the 
whole United States, Trudy and Timothy and 
Belle, from the little village of Todd’s Ferry, 
learned something about the great, beautiful Na- 
tional Forests. They saw wonderful photo- 
graphs of the giant California redwoods ; they ex- 
claimed over the lovely lakes in Glacier Park; 
they saw the waterfalls and the boiling geysers; 
they saw photographs of rolling smoke that 
meant that hundreds and thousands of trees were 


102 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


burning through the carelessness of someone who 
did not know how to camp in the woods; they 
saw, too, many scenes in the lives of forest 
rangers who guard the great areas of woodland. 

“ Trudy,” exclaimed Timothy, “ that’s like 
the man on our mountain. There’s one on the 
top of the mountain near us,” he explained to the 
woman who was showing the pictures. “ He 
stays there all summer. I’ve been up and seen 
him. He has a map in a glass case. Our moun- 
tain is pretty fine, even if it isn’t so big. You 
can see twenty-three lakes from the top of it, 
only some of them are just little ponds.” 

“ Know this picture? ” said Mr. Johnston, 
picking up an unmounted photograph. 

“ I guess I do,” replied Trudy. “ My tall, 
tall trees. I love them best, because they’re 
ours.” 

“ Is that one of Mr. Blake’s pictures? ” asked 
Francis. “ Is he here now? ” 

“ Yes, and he’s coming out to see you to-mor- 
row night.” 

“ Oh, good 1” 

It was all so fascinating that they hated to 


AND THE TREES 


103 


leave, but Miss Margaret and the girls had some 
errands to do, so they said good-bye. Timothy 
had stayed behind to get some leaflets about the 
work that he wanted to send to Grandfather. 
Suddenly he had an idea. 

“ Have you a good supply of these? ” he asked 
the clerk who was getting them. 

“ Plenty of them — why? ” 

“ Well, you see, there’s a man in Todd’s Ferry 
who doesn’t know much about trees. He thinks 
they’re just wood, and only good to sell or burn 
or things like that. He’s Belle’s father, and he 
drives the stage, and he’s selling off his wood 
something awful. I thought if you would be 
willing to send him some of these leaflets that tell 
how much good trees do, and what the Govern- 
ment is doing to save them, perhaps he’d stop. 
And he’s crazy about collections, so perhaps Belle 
could get him to make a collection of your things. 
Could you send him enough to start a collection? 
I’d do it, only I think he’d be more pleased to 
have them come from Washington. He always 
saves the envelope his Government Seeds come 


m. 


104 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY. 


“ I'll do that little thing for you,” said the 
clerk. “ I’d be very glad to. And I’ll send you 
some from time to time, when there’s anything 
interesting. What’s your address? ” 

“ Timothy Todd, Todd’s Ferry, New Hamp- 
shire — no street and number; and his is Cephas 
Perkins, same town and State.” 

So Mr. Perkins began to receive square brown 
envelopes, with no stamp on them, from Wash- 
ington, and what is more important, he began to 
read the leaflets that were inside the envelopes. 
Belle wrote him about the visit to the Bureau of 
Public Parks, and said she had some lovely post- 
cards of some of the parks for him. He began 
to be interested, but he never thought that a little 
place like Todd’s Ferry or the trees that grew 
there were important enough to bother about. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE FOREST RANGER 

It was on a Tuesday evening, at just ten min- 
utes before eight, that the Forest Ranger came. 
Timothy knew the exact time, for he was looking 
at the silver watch that Grandfather had given 
him the morning before he started for Washing- 
ton. Afterwards, they all wrote it in their jour- 
nals, just alike — “ On Tuesday evening, at ten 
minutes before eight, the Forest Ranger came to 
see us.” 

They were expecting Stanley Blake when the 
door-bell rang. They heard Susie Pearl come 
up the stairs and open the door. They heard her 
cry, “ Why, bress ma soul, Mistah Abbott! Wha 
you cum f’om? I ’lowed you was out in the 
woods, somewheres, livin’ in a cave, like a b’ar — 
there now, stop yo ’ nonsense, an’ run along in; 
de folks’ll be mighty glad to see yo’.” 

And then they heard a strange voice that said, 
“ I declare, Susie Pearl, you’re fatter than ever. 

105 


106 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


I can’t reach all the way around when I hug 
you.” And a hearty laugh that made them all 
smile, and quick footsteps that came along the 
hall, and then Mr. Johnston and Miss Margaret 
were at the door, saying, “ Why, Abbott! What 
a surprise. When did you get back? ” 

He stood in the doorway. A tall, lean young 
man, with blue eyes, and smooth light hair that 
grew thick above the tan of his wide forehead. 
He looked j.ust like any other young man. If 
you hadn’t heard what Susie Pearl said about liv- 
ing in a cave, you would not have thought much 
about him, except to hope that he was going to 
be a friend. But now, just as the children were 
all wondering who Abbott could be, Stanley 
Blake followed him into the room. 

Abbott was shaking hands with Miss Margaret 
and Mr. J ohnston, and they were chatting when 
Stanley seized Abbott’s elbow. 

“ Come on over and meet my friends,” he said. 
“ Ladies and gentlemen from Todd’s Perry, 
meet my cousin, Abbott Kimball. He’s a For- 
est Ranger, and he’s just arrived from Lassen 
National Forest, in California.” 


AND THE TREES 107 

California! Lassen National Forest! Not 
just names on a map any more, but some- 
thing real. Here was a man who had lived 
there. 

“Gee!” said Timothy, “Lassen? That’s a 
volcano. With smoke coming out of the top of 
it. The only active volcano in America, except 
the ones way up in Alaska. We saw a picture of 
it at Mr. Johnston’s office. Mr. Kimball, did 
you stay right on the volcano? Does it smoke all 
the time? What color is the smoke? Does the 
volcano have real eruptions, with lava and scald- 
ing hot stones flying out of it? ” 

Abbott Kimball laughed again. “ Not all the 
time. In fact, it is a very well-behaved volcano. 
It never scalded me once.” 

“ You’ve got your work cut out for you, Ab- 
bott,” said Mr. Johnston. “ These children will 
keep you busy answering questions for one good 
while. They know a bit about woods and Gov- 
ernment work themselves. They earned this trip 
to Washington by winning a Government can- 
ning contest.” 

“ The girls did! ” Timothy hurried to correct 


108 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


him. “ I earned my trip acting in moving pic- 
tures for Stanley.” 

And then it had to be all explained while they 
learned each other’s names and got acquainted. 
Abbott heard about Todd’s Ferry, and the squir- 
rel that had introduced Stanley Blake to the 
boys; he heard the story of the moving picture, 
but he was most interested in Aunt Theresy’s big 
pines. 

“ Oh, they must never be cut for timber,” he 
said. “ Trees like that should be preserved for 
the education and the pleasure of all the people.” 
And he told them of the big trees in California, 
with their tiny little cones, out of all proportion ; 
of Mount Shasta, whose name is the Indian word 
for purity, snow-covered and all dazzling white, 
while close beside it rises Black Butte, the tall 
dingy cone-shaped mountain that is thought to 
be made of cinders thrown out by Shasta in the 
long-ago years when she was a raging, seething, 
active volcano. He told of long trips through 
the forest; of waterfalls that leap down the sides 
of mighty mountains; of camping beside glacial 
streams; of packing burros; of the grand and 



HE TOLD THEM OF THE BIG TREES IN CALIFORNIA 






















• I 


























































































































AND THE TREES 


109 


lovely sunsets that shed their colors on rocky 
mountain peaks that tower to the clouds them- 
selves; of the wonderful ruby afterglow that 
comes like a miracle and makes you hold your 
breath with happiness; and then it was twelve 
o’clock. 

Timothy looked at his watch again. No one 
could believe it. 

“ You’ll never let me come again,” laughed 
Abbott as he said good-night. 

“ Just try it and see,” said Miss Margaret. 
“ The only difficulty you will have will be to get 
away when you do come. Look at those chil- 
dren.” 

Their eyes were shining. They clung close to 
the man who had shown them glimpses of the 
great world ; who had made places known only in 
pictures as real as their own familiar Todd’s 
Ferry; who had opened for them the doors to na- 
ture’s marvels, and they said, “ Oh, when will 
you come back? ” 

“ Oh, I’ll be in Washington for some time. 
You’ll see plenty of me. I’m on a furlough now, 
and don’t know where I shall be sent next. 


110 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


While I’m here, we’ll have some good times to- 
gether, if you like.” 

Timothy pulled Stanley aside. “ Stanley,” he 
said, looking very stern, “ why didn’t you ever 
tell us about him before? I never knew you had 
a cousin who was a Forest Ranger! ” 

iC Why, I guess I must have forgotten all about 
him. You see, he’s been West five years, and 
I’ve been pretty busy.” 

“ You couldn’t forget him. Nobody could 
forget the things that he does.” 

“ To tell you the truth, Timothy, I never 
thought to mention him while I was in Todd’s 
Ferry, there was so much going on with the 
pictures and all, and when you came here 
and he wrote he was coming back, I saved him 
for a surprise. You see, I thought you’d like 
him.” 

After that there were wonderful days with 
Abbott. Sometimes Miss Margaret went with 
them, and sometimes he took the children alone. 
They avoided the tourists and went their own 
way. There was the trip to Mount Vernon, 
where they saw the beautiful home of George 


AND THE TREES 


111 


Washington. Who but Abbott would have told 
them of Washington’s trips through the forests 
when he was a surveyor? And what guide could 
have made them see the river as it looked with its 
thickly wooded banks when George Washing- 
ton’s great-grandfather bought the plantation 
that was then only a woodland with a tiny cabin 
here and there, and wild animals roving through 
the woods at night? Yet Abbott would never 
have noticed that the corner of the bedroom door 
was cut away, making a curving little opening 
where kitty could come and go, if Trudy hadn’t 
showed it to him. 

They spent a forenoon in the Fish Commission 
building watching the queer little sea-horses and 
the brilliant fish in their glass cases. They saw 
the millions of eggs, and the tiny fish hatched 
from them, while Abbott told them of the great 
salmon that climb the swift western rivers from 
the sea, to lay their eggs where nature can best 
protect them; and told them, too, how the Gov- 
ernment protects its fish all through the great 
National Parks. They learned so many things 
that the journals would not hold them all, and 


112 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

Francis had to buy extra books for the whole 
party. 

And as they walked or rode about the city, 
where now the trees were thick dark green, Ab- 
bott taught them the names of the different trees. 
And he also taught them some of the ways of 
caring for trees; he told of the men who, working 
for Uncle Sam as Mr. Johnston and Stanley 
did, went into the deep forests, measuring trees, 
deciding what should be cut out to give room for 
others to grow; which should be cut for timber; 
where certain kinds would grow best; planning 
all the time to keep the Parks in perfect condition 
for the people of the United States, that never 
should their land be without trees. 

“ For,” he told them one day, as they sat on 
the banks of the Potomac at Great Falls and 
watched the waters whirling, dashing, rushing 
over the great rocks, “ if you have no trees, you 
have nothing. In some countries men who knew 
no better have cut down all the trees and sold 
them for the money they would bring. And 
what happened? The rains came and beat upon 
the bare earth and made it hard as stone; the 


113 


AND THE TREES 

brooks and rivers overflowed on this hard earth, 
and rushed into the valleys, carrying rocks, 
gravel and dirt down onto the fertile fields so that 
never again could they bear crops. And then, 
later, the sun dried up the streams that had run 
mills, and the mills fell to pieces. Whole towns 
and villages went out of existence because the 
streams and rivers were no longer there.” 

“ You hear that. Belle Perkins,” warned Tim- 
othy. “And you tell your father what a Forest 
Ranger says. Because he knows, and something 
has got to be done to stop your father from sell- 
ing off all his woodland. I just wish you could 
see Amos. He feels just the way you do about 
trees,” he said to Abbott. 

Abbott knew by this time who Amos was, so 
he said very earnestly, “ I surely hope I shall 
meet him some day. You know I’m getting 
pretty fond of Todd’s Ferry. If it is all as good 
as the sample that came to Washington, I think 
I could be contented there quite awhile.” 

“ Oh, will you come up to see us? ” begged 
Belle. “ If you would only come up there and 
talk the way you do to us ” 


114 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

“ They would run me out of town,” he laughed. 
“ They would say I was an awful bore.” 

“Aunt Theresy wouldn’t run you out of town,” 
said Trudy. “ She would show you her trees. 
Nobody would run you out of town. They 
would ask you to lecture in the Town Hall.” 

“ I shan’t come, then,” he declared. “ I’m no 
lecturer.” 

One day they took him to the Senate, and he 
sat in the gallery with them and heard the Sen- 
ator from New Hampshire speak on improve- 
ments. “ That man knows something,” he said. 
“ Who is he? ” 

And wasn’t Timothy proud to be able to say, 
“ That is our Senator from New Hampshire. 
He came to Mr. Johnston’s sugar party, and 
we met him there. He gave us our tickets to the 
gallery. I’ll introduce you to him if we see him.” 

In the corridor they did meet him, and Tim- 
othy introduced Abbott. The Senator was in- 
terested, and they began talking about forestry, 
but they talked about subjects that the children 
could not understand, so they wandered away to 
wait. When Abbott found them again, he said. 


AND THE TREES 


115 


“ I may come to New Hampshire after all. The 
Senator is a member of the Forestry Association, 
and he wants some points from me. It wouldn’t 
be so very strange if you did see me in Todd’s 
Ferry some day.” 

Somehow something was bringing up Todd’s 
Ferry nearly every day now. There were the 
presents to buy for all the people at home; and 
the flowers that bloomed in the parks made them 
think of the gardens that Father would be spad- 
ing and Mother would be planting; they saw one 
party of tourists with badges that said “ New 
Hampshire ” ; there were letters from home tell- 
ing of the spring ploughing, and of the trailing 
arbutus that Father had picked for Aunt The- 
resy; and there were cards from Amos. They 
all formed the habit of saying, “ When we get 

home again we must do ” Oh, there were 

so many things to do when they got home. And 
still there were so many things to do in Washing- 
ton. 

So Abbott took them to Harper’s Ferry and 
they stood on the corduroy bridge of logs, with 
cracks through which they could see the river 


116 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


raging white and angry far below; they paid the 
toll fee and walked into West Virginia; they saw 
the John Brown monument, and bought post- 
cards to send home and to put in their journals; 
they ate their lunch on the river banks where they 
could watch the muddy river and the clear blue 
one that rushed from the hills together and swept 
along so fast that the waters could not mingle but 
flowed side by side for a long distance, in the 
mad race to escape through the only opening in 
the encircling hills. And while they were there, 
watching the rivers, they were seeing in their 
minds the little creek at Todd’s Ferry flowing 
into the lake, and the lily pads way under the 
still water, growing — growing — on the long, 
strong stems. They thought of the bridge over 
the creek where Amos had shown them the mir- 
acle. 

No one said out loud yet what was in the mind 
of each, but they talked more and more about 
Todd’s Ferry and what they would do when they 
were home again. 


CHAPTER IX 


AT THE ZOO 

“ My big brother is going to take me to the 
Zoo,” said Miss Margaret one evening as they 
were sitting around the table, reading and writ- 
ing. “ He’s going to let me stay all day, and 
we’re going to have one of Susie Pearl’s nice 
lunches, and eat all we can, and give the rest to 
bears and monkeys and birds. My big brother is 
a kind man, and he will take anybody else who 
wants to go, I think. That is, if anyone would 
like to go.” 

“ She’s joking,” explained Timothy to Belle, 
who looked rather bewildered. “ She doesn’t 
really mean all that about our liking to go. She 
knows we wouldn’t miss it for anything.” 

“ Oh,” said Belle, relieved, “ I want to go. I 
want to see the animals.” 

“ These will be real animals,” said Francis. 
“ You remember that, Timothy, and don’t try to 
pat them, the way you did the Roosevelt lions.” 

117 


118 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


“ Huh,” replied Timothy, “ you can’t fool me 
twice! ” 

So it happened that one lovely April morning 
the whole party came down the broad stone steps, 
carrying bundles of lunch, thermos bottles, cam- 
eras, post-cards, and fountain pens to write home 
from the Zoo and tell their adventures. They 
walked up to the Connecticut Avenue car, and as 
it stopped for them a voice called, “ Come up 
here. I have some nice seats for you.” And 
there was Abbott, with a box of lunch too. 

“ Oh, hello! ” cried Timothy. “ I didn’t know 
you were going. I’ll sit here by you, and you 
can tell me again about the burro that fell down 
the mountain and got stuck between two boul- 
ders.” 

“ Did you know Abbott was going? ” Belle 
asked Trudy. 

“ No, but I think the grown-ups did — they 
were not a bit surprised.” 

All the way out to the Zoo the children listened 
to the stories of the Forest Ranger; he told them 
of long trips through forests where trails were 
faint, and where the way was so rough that only 


AND THE TREES 119 

the sure-footed little burros could travel ; of tents 
pitched by rushing streams and meals cooked 
over the camp-fires; of bread made with only a 
knife to mix it, and baked on a stick over the 
blaze ; of bears that crept up to the camp, hunting 
for the bacon that sizzled in the frying-pan and 
smelled so tempting. They forgot that they 
were on an electric car in Washington, and when 
they reached the entrance to the Zoo, and walked 
along the road that wound between wooded 
slopes rising on either side, it really seemed as if 
they were in the great forest. There were no 
other tourists in sight, and no sound but the songs 
of the birds flying from tree to tree. They were 
looking up the hill, trying to see a bird, when 
Timothy spied the creature ! 

He was coming down the grassy slope between 
the trees — well, not rapidly, but altogether too 
fast. He was coming directly at them! Tim- 
othy could not tell his head from his tail except 
as he moved toward them, but of course there 
must be a head somewhere under that shaggy mat 
of hair that covered the tremendous beast from 
end to end, and hung down and trailed on the 


120 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


ground. And there was no fence to be seen be- 
tween him and — everybody ! 

“ Stop! ” whispered Timothy. “ Turn round 
and go back as fast as you can! Perhaps he 
hasn’t seen us yet. Don’t run, but walk awful 
fast!” 

Amd then Belle and Trudy saw him too. They 
turned as white as Timothy. But before they 
could speak, before they could even turn, Miss 
Margaret had seen him and was laughing. 

“Bless his heart, here’s the yak!” she cried. 
“ He always comes down to meet his visitors. 
Isn’t he the loveliest buffalo robe you ever saw 
walking about? You can’t tell which way he’s 
facing till he moves.” 

“ But,” objected Timothy, “ is he tame? How 
near you does he come? ” 

“ Only to the fence.” 

“ I don’t see any fence.” 

“ It’s wire, Timothy,” said Francis, “ right 
there by those bushes. There are lots of wire 
fences here. It makes the animals seem more 
natural, and as if they were really free.” 

Timothy was rather disturbed at being fooled 


AND THE TREES 121 

again, but forgot it when Mr. Johnston said to 
Abbott, “ What time do they unload? ” 

“ Not until two o’clock.” 

He wondered what was going to be unloaded, 
and where, but nothing more was said, and soon 
they were in the lion houses. Here were real 
lions and lionesses, tremendous cats which lay on 
their sides and purred tremendous purrs, and 
washed their faces with tremendous paws that 
would tear you to pieces if they could reach be- 
yond the steel bars. At the back of each cage 
was a little, low door that led into the yard, for 
every lion had a little yard to play in, and a 
stump of a tree, dead and worn smooth where the 
lion had lain stretched along it in the sun, with 
one branch torn to ribbons where he had sharp- 
ened his wicked claws ; you could walk out behind 
the lion house and watch them in the yards. 

And what fun it was in the monkey-house, and 
how noisy! All the monkeys w r ere chattering, 
and clinging to the bars and holding out their 
arms for peanuts, and catching them in their 
little hands that looked like tiny human hands. 
They stood watching the orang-outang who sat 


122 TRUDY. AND TIMOTHY 

huddled in the corner of his cage and seemed like 
an old, bearded man. He was looking at them, 
playing with the sawdust on the floor. They 
talked to him, and he seemed to listen, half-clos- 
ing his eyes and bending his head. 

“ Nice old orang-outang,” said Francis, “ I 
wonder what he thinks.” Belle and Trudy 
crowded nearer the cage. Nice old orang-outang 
slowly gathered a handful of sawdust from the 
floor and suddenly rose to his feet. Whish ! Out 
shot his long arm, and over the children fell the 
sawdust. And nice old orang-outang turned his 
back! 

“Well!” exclaimed Timothy, “I guess we 
don’t want any more of him.” 

“ Come out to the bear-pits,” said Miss Mar- 
garet. “After we have seen the bears we’ll find 
some settees and have our lunch. Susie Pearl 
has made us a loaf of frosted cake.” 

They found a place to eat their lunch and 
watch the bears in their roomy pits at the same 
time. The bears lurched back and forth on the 
concrete floors, splashed in their little private 
ponds, or swung in and out of the dens at the 


AND THE TREES 


123 


backs of the pits. The bear-pits were under the 
side of a hill, but the bears could not climb out on 
account of strong curved iron bars at the top of 
the slope. The great white polar bear that was 
Miss Margaret's favorite, kept walking into his 
pool and out the other side over and over again, 
stopping once in awhile to lie on the concrete in a 
great puddle of water, and pant. 

The lunch was just what everyone wanted, and 
when Miss Margaret opened the box of cake 
there was a chorus of satisfied “ Oh-h-hs! ” The 
cake did look so nice, all frosted, top and sides. 
She cut it and passed it around. Each one took 
a big bite — each one began to chew — each one 
looked surprised, and kept chewing, and chew- 
ing, and chewing! When Mr. Johnston could 
speak, he said, “ Margaret, what’s the matter 
with this cake? I thought I was chewing gum.” 

“ Oh, brother, Susie Pearl must have made a 
mistake and used the gluten flour that the doctor 
ordered for your muffins ! ” 

“ I don’t care for gluten cake. The polar bear 
may have my piece.” 

So the polar bear got the whole loaf, and he 


124 


TRUDY slND TIMOTHY 


ate it in such huge mouthfuls that it was gone be- 
fore they knew it, and he was standing on his 
hind legs, reaching out his paws between the bars 
and begging for more. 

During the lunch-time, Mr. Johnston and Ab- 
bott had been looking at their watches, and now 
they said, “ Come on. It’s time.” 

“ Time for what?” demanded Timothy. 

“ Time to see something.” 

They went through the Zoo grounds and 
reached a place where a railway car stood on a 
siding. Near it were several attendants, a 
wagon with a strong cage on it, chains and iron- 
shod poles. The men were backing the wagon 
up to the closed and heavily-barred door of the 
car. 

“ Stand back! ” they called. 

“ Get up on the settees,” said Mr. Johnston. 
“ They are going to unload some tigers ! ” 

Silent, breathing very quickly, fascinated and 
almost frightened, they watched the cage chained 
to the car. Both doors were then drawn up, and 
from the black interior of the car shot a striped 
yellow and black shape that snarled and bit at the 


AND THE TREES 


12 5 


poles that drove him into the cage on the wagon. 
The doors were lowered into place, padlocked, 
and the cage was carried away on the cart. And 
as it drove away, Timothy realized that there was 
a familiar whirring sound behind him. 

“ There’s a moving-picture camera here,” he 
said. 

“ Sure there is,” came the answer. “ Don’t 
you know by this time that Uncle Sam is always 
‘ Johnny-on-the-spot ’? ” 

The children cried out, for there, behind them, 
with his camera that had taken the wonderful pic- 
tures at Todd’s Ferry, was Mr. Sims. And 
Stanley Blake was with him. 

How they all talked! “ Where are Claire and 
Isabelle?” “Are they coming to Todd’s Ferry 
this summer? ” “ My, Francis, it seems good 

to see you scrambling about so strong and 
well.” 

Claire and Isabelle were working in Califor- 
nia, but were coming East very soon. Mr. Sims 
had been sent to take the unloading of the animals 
for a weekly moving-picture concern, and Stan- 
ley was shooting them for the Government. He 


126 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

had told Mr. Johnston about it, and suggested 
that the children come to the Zoo on that day. 

Three tigers and a grizzly bear were carried off 
to their new homes ; then the wagon drove away, 
and a runway was put up to the car door. 

“ What’s coming now? ” said Trudy, clinging 
to Miss Margaret. 

“A tame fellow. You won’t have to keep out 
of his way. Watch.” 

In the doorway appeared the queerest figure, 
squatting on big strong hind legs, holding its 
ridiculous little fore-paws folded over its breast 
like a polite old lady, and turning its long deer- 
like face inquiringly from side to side. 

“ A kangaroo! ” 

“ Yes. Notice the man. He steers him by 
the tail, just as you drive an automobile by the 
wheel.” 

Sure enough, the kangaroo hopped obediently 
down the slanting runway, and behind him came 
the keeper, holding the long thick tail. He did 
not attempt to chain the kangaroo, but walked 
along, guiding him easily by turning the tail, ex- 
actly as Timothy had guided Jack-horse by the 


AND THE TREES 


127 


reins again and again. The kangaroo seemed to 
enjoy being out in the warm sunshine, and looked 
about, but the man paid little attention to him, 
turning to chat with another keeper who followed 
him. 

Mr. Johnston was talking to a man in the 
crowd. Suddenly the kangaroo stopped, and 
with a couple of mighty leaps left the keeper and 
landed behind Mr. Johnston. He stood there, 
resting his little front paws on Mr. Johnston’s 
shoulders. Before anyone could call, Mr. Johns- 
ton, thinking someone who wanted to speak to 
him, had touched him, turned, and looked directly 
into the long furry face of Mr. Kangaroo! 

And then — such a yell as the Santa Claus man 
gave, and how he did run! But only for a few 
steps, for Timothy caught him. 

“It’s only a harmless little kangaroo! Oh, 
don’t you ever say anything more to me about 
being scared by a yak ” 

And all the way home Mr. Johnston kept ex- 
plaining that he wasn’t really scared at all, only 
he was so startled, and as soon as he saw it was a 
kangaroo, he was all right ; and he was really very 


128 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


fond of kangaroos, until Miss Margaret said, 
“ Well, brother dear, if you’re so fond of them. 
I’ll try to buy you one for a pet.” 

In the evening the telephone rang. Miss 
Margaret answered it, and they heard her say, 
“ Oh, that’s very nice — yes, I know he would like 

it I was going to buy him a live one, but 

I’m sure this would be less trouble Thank 

you. Good-bye.” 

And as she hung up the receiver, she said, 
laughing, “ Brother dear, Mr. Sims got a fine 
picture of you and your kangaroo. He’s going 
to send you one very soon.” 


CHAPTER X 


HOME AGAIN 

The April days in Washington were lovely. 
There was so much green grass, and so many 
lovely fresh trees, and such a lot of spring shrubs 
and flowers. The nights were soft and warm. 
When Trudy and Belle put out their lights and 
opened the shutters they saw the stars shining in 
the dark sky. And each night, each little girl 
saw something else. Trudy saw her great elm 
tree with the oriole’s nest that hung close to her 
window; Belle saw her father and mother sit- 
ting by the table with the red-checked cloth, read- 
ing the paper. Timothy, looking toward the 
wireless tower, saw his shed-attic, with the trap- 
door over the bench, and the tools that he had not 
used for weeks. And when they walked the busy 
streets, they saw the roads and lanes and green 
fields of Todd’s Ferry stretching ever before 
them. 


129 


130 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

Belle spoke first. “ Miss Margaret, we’ve had 
a wonderful time, and I shall never forget it as 
long as I live, but, dear Miss Margaret, I want 
to go home.” 

Timothy spoke quickly. “ There’s lots to do 
in the spring. I told Amos I’d help him on his 
fish route, too. He expects a pretty busy sea- 
son.” 

Trudy said, “ When will you come? ” 

“ Dears, I’ve just been waiting to know when 
you were ready. I did not want you to go until 
you had had your good times here, but now I am 
as anxious to get home to New Hampshire as you 
are. Suppose we start next Monday. That 
will give us time to get some little gifts for every- 
one, and plenty of time to pack. My brother 
cannot leave just now, but Susie Pearl will take 
good care of him.” 

“ Isn’t Francis going? ” 

“ Of course I’m going! You didn’t think I 
wasn’t, did you? Why, I can do things this year 
and not lie around in a wheel chair any more.” 

The trip home was even more fun than the 
journey to Washington, for this time things were 


131 


AND THE TREES 

not strange; they could look out of the window 
and know where to look for the last glimpse of 
the Monument; they could see what Baltimore 
looked like in the daytime; the porter on the 
train was the one they had come down with, and 
he remembered them and asked if they had had a 
good time. In New York they changed to the 
Fall River boat and sailed past the great sky- 
scrapers, seeing the Statue of Liberty and then, 
just as they were preparing for a nice evening on 
deck, down came the fog like a smothering white 
blanket, covering them with drops of moisture 
and driving them to their staterooms, where they 
lay, listening to the thunder of the fog-horn that 
blew all night, roaring, “ Who? Who? Who? ” 
and waiting just a second to catch the other horns 
that answered, “ Who — are — you?” The chil- 
dren knew they could never sleep in such a racket, 
but something shut their eyes, and then it was 
morning, with a scramble from the boat and a 
hurried breakfast, and a dash for the morning 
train from the North Station. 

Then familiar places, the idea that perhaps 
someone from home might be on the train, the 


132 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

stop at Concord, the first view of the mountain 
across the fields, the woods that were beginning 
to put forth little new leaves, as the trees in 
Washington had done weeks before, the brown 
fields with men ploughing, and the stop for the 
High School boys and girls, with their bags of 
books. Why, hello, here’s Timothy and Trudy I 
Did you have a good time?” — all the big boys 
and girls speaking. And then the station 

“ Oh, look, Belle! Your father’s got the new 
automobile stage! ” 

“ Trudy, see, Trudy, there’s Grandmother and 
Grandfather ” 

“ Oh, Trudy Todd, there’s your ” 

“ Mother, oh, Mother darling — and Father, 
too! ” 

And they were on the platform, hugging every- 
body. For Mr. Perkins had brought all the 
families to the station to meet the children, and 
had used the new automobile stage for the first 
time. No other passengers could ride in it this 
trip. It was for the Todd’s Ferry travelers and 
their own dear ones. The few other people who 
had come must ride on the old stage. 


133 


AND THE TREES 

“ Where’s Amos? ” inquired Timothy, and 
then, as he raced around the corner of the station, 
he saw him, sitting on the front seat of the new 
stage, gripping the wheel, his eyes straight ahead. 

“ Holding the new horses,” he said solemnly. 
“ New ones are always afraid of the tram, you 
know.” 

“ Oh, Amos, can you run it? Are you going 
to have one for the fish-route? Do you think 
Mr. Perkins will teach me to drive? ” 

He clambered up beside him. 

“ Gracious, I supposed all you Washington 
folks would know all the ins and outs of automo- 
biles. I guess Todd’s Ferry will be pretty slow 
after all the excitement you have been used 
to.” 

There was so much to say on the ride home. 
Trudy sat with Mother’s arm about her; Belle 
was on the front seat with her father; the rest 
were leaning forward and talking with each 
other. 

The narrow, woodsy roads with the farm- 
houses here and there, were quiet and cool. 
Swallows sat on the telegraph wires. King- 


134 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

birds swung on the tops of low bushes, and brown 
thrashers trilled on the tips of the maple trees. 
Blue and white violets gleamed among the little 
ferns at the roadside, and over all was the lovely 
blue sky with fleecy white clouds drifting before 
the west wind. And then they were at the vil- 
lage. Mr. McAdam was waiting on the store 
porch and waved his hand as soon as the stage 
came in sight. Bill, behind him, in his overalls 
and red sweater, and all the boys, pretending to 
wait for the mail, but really waiting for Timothy 
and Francis. Miss Fields hurried out from the 
store, and everyone called out, “ Welcome 
home!” and in a second, “Why, where is Mr. 
Johnston? ” 

“ Coming soon,” replied Miss Margaret. 

Mr. Perkins drove up to Grandfather’s farm- 
house just as he had the first time Trudy ever saw 
Todd’s Ferry, but to-day he drove to the little 
red house too, and Miss Margaret and Francis 
stopped there for the night. 

“ Good-bye, Belle,” called Trudy. “ Come 
up to-morrow, won’t you? ” 

“ Yes, and you come right over to see me. 


AND THE TREES 


135 


You know we’ve got to help Pa fix his collection 
of Washington cards.” 

Next day, after the trunks were unpacked, 
Trudy ran over to Grandmother’s. Timothy 
and F rancis were in the shed-attic. 

“ Come on up,” called Francis. “We’re mak- 
ing a closet for the sap-house. In a few minutes 
we’re going over to set it up.” 

“ We’re going to make a regular camp there, 
and play it’s in the Shasta Reservation,” added 
Timothy. “ I’m going to practise making 
bread on a stick, like Abbott told us, and 
Francis has a book that tells how to make fires, 
and you can ask your mother to give us a 
frying-pan. Grandmother can’t spare any of 
hers.” 

“ Oh, won’t that be great ! We can take sand- 
wiches and stay all day.” 

“ I wonder where those old lumbermen are,” 
said Timothy. “ I hope Mr. Perkins hasn’t sold 
them any more lumber. If we let Belle camp 
with us, she will have to tell her father about the 
rules.” 

“ Belle doesn’t want her father to have all his 


136 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

wood cut off. She said she told him so, but he 
just laughed.” 

“ Well, anyway, I sent him a lot of books about 
forestry, and she must make him read them.” 

“ Come on, Timothy,” interrupted Francis. 
“ Let’s go.” 

As they crossed the road they heard a call, and 
saw Amos walking up the hill. 

“ Where now?” he said. “Til bet I can 
guess. To the sap-house.” 

“ Right. How is everything? ” 

“ Bad neighborhood over there now. The saw- 
mill is just above. You can hear them at work 
all day long, and they get their water from the 
spring. They wanted Aunt Theresy to board 
them, but she didn’t feel able, so they have built 
a shack and board themselves. They want to get 
all the trees around here, I guess. Asked Turner 
to sell them some, but they won’t ask him again.” 

“ Why? What did he say?” 

“ Said he wouldn’t sell, and, more than that, he 
told them not to cross his land on the way to the 
village. They don’t either, for he is chairman of 
the selectmen, you know.” 


AND THE TREES 


137 


“ How is Aunt Theresy? We’re going over 
there as soon as we get something made for her. 
We brought a lot of post-cards, and we’re going 
to make them into a book, with writing telling 
about the places we saw. Don’t you think she 
will like that? ” 

“ I brought you a Scout knife, Amos,” an- 
nounced Timothy. “ It’s a great knife. They’re 
expensive, too. You can do anything with it. 
We’ll take it when we go in the woods, camping. 
I wrote you about the Forest Ranger, Abbott 
Kimball, didn’t I? He’s Stanley Blake’s cousin, 
and he works for the Government too, and he’s 
great. I wish he would come up here. But I 
don’t suppose he can, for he has to go where the 
reservations are and help take care of them. I 
wish we had a reservation here. Then maybe 
they would send him up to take care of it. But 
he told us a lot of things, and you and I are going 
to study so we can know as much as he does. 
Of course, we can’t practise shooting bears, 
but ” 

“ You can’t even find a yak up here, Timothy,” 
laughed Francis. 


138 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

“ What’s a yak? ” said Amos. “And what 
makes Timothy so red? ” 

“ Never you mind about the yak. I’ll bet 
you’d run from a hedgehog if you thought he was 
going to quill you ! ” 

“ I’ll tell you about the yak some time, Amos,” 
promised Trudy. “Are you going over to the 
sap-house with us? ” 

“ Might as well. I’m taking a vacation day 
to celebrate your home-coming.” 

They took the short cut across the fields, and 
over the brook. As they approached the sap- 
house they could hear the buzzing of the sawmill, 
and the loud voices of the men. The trees around 
the sap-house had not been cut, for they were 
Grandfather’s that he had bought from Aunt 
Theresy, and they hid the mill. But the noise 
spoiled the place. All the time it seemed as if 
something were threatening the peaceful woods. 
While they were nailing the closet in place, a 
strange man came to the spring for a drink. 

“ Hello,” he said, “ no objection to our using 
your spring, I presume? Mr. Todd said we 
might.” 


139 


AND THE TREES 

“ Well,” replied Amos, “ if he said yes, we 
can’t say no.” 

“ Haven’t any standing timber you want to 
sell, have you? ” the man went on. “ These trees 
round here would bring quite a tidy sum. Those 
big pines over yonder take my eye, though. I’m 
going to make a try for them. I’m told the old 
lady won’t sell, but I guess if I make her a big 
enough offer she’ll change her mind. Money 
talks, you know.” 

Trudy was so angry she could not speak. She 
turned away to hide the tears in her eyes, and 
F rancis went over to comfort her. But Timothy 
faced the man. 

“ That’s Aunt Theresy you’re talking about,” 
he said, very loud, “ and you’d better be careful. 
And let me tell you something — she will never, 
never sell her big pines. They belonged to her 
ancestors, and she loves them, and she’s going to 
keep them forever and ever, amen, and you don’t 
know a thing about it. I’ve been in a moving 
picture with those trees, and the picture is going 
to be shown all over the United States, and you 
needn’t think you can come in here and buy those 


140 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

trees and cut them down, for you can’t ! And I 
guess you needn’t come down here for any more 
water, either. I’ll speak to my grandfather about 
your case! ” 

The man laughed. “ Say, young fellow, 
you’re some spit-fire, aren’t you? Got the tem- 
per that goes with your red head. I guess no- 
body is going to ask you whether the trees will be 
sold or not. They don’t belong to you. Wait 
till they do before you talk so big! ” 

“ Timothy, I’m glad you said it! ” cried Trudy 
as the man strode away. “ He shan’t have her 
trees. Shall he, Amos? ” 

But Amos did not answer. 


CHAPTER XI 


AUNT THEEESY IS SICK 

Belle was telephoning to Trudy. “ Yes, you 
come down to my house. Get Francis and Tim- 
othy, and bring your journals. Pa is going to 
stay at home this afternoon, and wants us to help 
him arrange his collection of Washington cards.” 
She lowered her voice. “ Can you hear me? — 
All right, tell Timothy to bring all his forestry 
stuff!” 

Mr. Perkins had a lame finger. One of the 
horses had stepped on it, and he was at home 
until it was better. Ben Dobson was driving the 
automobile stage. Ben was a big lad of seven- 
teen now, as tall as Amos, and when he was home 
from the Academy between terms, did a man’s 
work. 

The children came in laden with cards, books 
and pamphlets. 

“ I declare,” said Mr. Perkins, staring at the 

collection. “ What is this anyway? A lecture? ” 
141 


142 TBUDY^ AND TIMOTHY 

“ Maybe,” replied Francis. “ We’re all ready 
to answer any questions you want to ask.” 

“ First question. When is Mr. Johnston com- 
ing?” 

“ Oh, to-night! Aren’t you glad? ” 

“ To-night? Well, then, you can stay to sup- 
per and ride up on the stage. Mother can find 
something for you to eat, I guess; can’t you. 
Mother? ” 

“ I certainly can. If we can’t find anything 
else, we’ll eat some of Belle’s preserves.” 

“ Now how are you going to begin your book, 
Mr. Perkins? ” asked Timothy. “ Here’s a card 
of the South Station in Boston. That’s where 
our trip really began.” 

They sorted the cards, and talked about the 
places. It was very, strange how much they 
found to say about trees and forests, and how 
often Abbott Kimball’s name was mentioned. 
Mr. Perkins was interested in Abbott’s experi- 
ences in California, and told about his great-uncle 
who had gone to California as a gold hunter in 
1849, sailing around the whole coast of North 
and South America, and living for weeks and 


AND THE TREES 


143 


weeks on the vessel: landing at San Francisco 
with the thousands of other gold-seekers when it 
was just a collection of rough board houses, and 
then tramping into the mountains. 

“ And did he find the gold? ” 

“ Oh, yes, he found gold, but he had to spend 
it all to get home again. Everything cost so 
much. He came home poorer than he went.” 

“ It seems to me,” said Timothy, “ you can’t 
do very much if you haven’t money.” 

“ That’s so,” agreed Mr. Perkins heartily. 
“ Money is a pretty handy thing to have. You 
remember that, and save some for a rainy day. 
Never can tell when you’re going to need some, 
and when you do need it, you’re likely to need it 
bad.” 

“ Timothy’s got money in the bank at Con- 
cord,” said Trudy, “ and so have I. We earned 
it when we kept store. Grandfather took us to 
Concord and we put it in the bank ourselves.” 

“ Glad to hear it,” approved Mr. Perkins. 

Timothy looked at him, wondering if he put 
all the money that the lumbermen gave him in 
the bank. If he did, he must be rich. He had 


144 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


sold so many trees. Abbott would know how 
much the trees were worth. Some kinds were 
worth more than others — like the big pines — like 
the huge trees in California where Abbott had 
camped. 

“ Did your uncle see the big trees in Cali- 
fornia? ” 

“ Never heard him mention them.” 

“ You know our trees are remarkable for this 
part of the country. Abbott says he’d like to 
see them. I was telling him about them, and 
there are pictures of them in the Department of 
Forestry at Washington. You know, the pic- 
tures Mr. Sims and Stanley Blake made, when 
we all acted in the moving picture.” 

But Mr. Perkins did not seem to take any in- 
terest in the big trees of Todd’s Ferry, and Tim- 
othy gave up in despair. 

When they were in the barn, milking Mr. Per- 
kins’ cows, he said to Belle, “ Does your father 
read the things they send him from Washing- 
ton? ” 

“ Well, I never see him, but he generally reads 
after I’ve gone to bed. Somebody reads them, 


AND THE TREES 145 

though, because I find them all folded inside 
out” 

“ Is he going to let the lumbermen cut any 
more timber? ” 

“ I don’t think he has sold any more yet. The 
boss was here the other day, and Father told him 
to come again in a little while. The boss was 
pretty cross when he went away. And — oh, 
Timothy, what do you think? I heard him tell 
Father about some corking timber he had his eye 
on, and was going to get, too. Do you suppose 
he could have meant Aunt Theresy’s pines? ” 

“ I guess he won’t get them,” said Timothy. 

While they were eating supper, the telephone 
rang. Mrs. Perkins answered and they heard 
her say, “ Oh, I’m so sorry — certainly — I’ll be 

right up there, just as soon as I harness 

No, I can put the horse in her barn — yes, I can 
stay all night.” 

“ What is it. Mother? ” said Mr. Perkins. 
“ Somebody sick? ” 

“ Yes, Theresy Hinton. That was Mrs. Todd 
telephoning. She said Theresy has not been feel- 
ing well for some time, but to-day she collapsed. 


146 TRUDY, AND TIMOTHY 

Mrs. Todd has been with her this afternoon, but 
she has to go home to-night and wants me to sit 
up with her.” 

“Sit up with Aunt Theresy!” That was 
serious. The children stared with sober faces. 
Trudy spoke first, “ Oh, Mrs. Perkins, is she very 
sick? ” 

“ There, there, I guess not, but you know she 
lives by herself, and sick folks can’t be left alone. 
I’ll go right along, Father. Belle, you wash the 
dishes. You children go right home when the 
stage comes.” 

It was a very sad group that met the Santa 
Claus man on the stage. And he shook his head 
when he heard the news. That made it worse. 
The Santa Claus man could do almost every- 
thing, but even he could not always cure sick 
folks. And they were all thinking about the day 
in the early spring when Aunt Theresy had sat 
so silent in her kitchen, with her apron to her 
face. They had seen her crying. Perhaps she 
had felt sick then. And Aunt Theresy lived all 
alone. But Amos had said she was rich in 
friends. They must see Amos and talk this over. 


AND THE TREES 147 

At church and Sunday School next day they 
heard people talking about Aunt Theresy’s sick- 
ness. There was something queer about it. 
One said, “ Well, I didn’t see how she could man- 
age.” Another said it was too bad she had had 
to sell so much of her land. But Timothy, out 
by the horse-sheds, heard the men talking. 
“ She’ll have to sell them,” they said emphatic- 
ally. “ She never can pay her bills unless she 
does — and she wouldn’t accept a cent from any- 
one.” 

On the way home they met Amos. He was 
coming from Aunt Theresy’s house. He looked 
worried, and did not joke. 

“ Tell us how Aunt Theresy is,” they said. 

“ The doctor has just been. He says there 
isn’t much the matter, only she’s kind of run 
down and tired out. There seems to be some- 
thing on her mind. She’s worrying about some- 
thing.” 

Amos went on. Timothy stood in the road, 
staring after him. 

Sunday was a sad day, and Monday, at school, 
was worse. It was impossible to study. The 


148 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

children hurried home after school, and Trudy 
went up to the farmhouse with Timothy. 

Grandmother was packing a basket. 

“ Is that for Aunt Theresy? ” asked Timothy. 
“ Let us take it over? ” 

“ Yes, I wish you would. Miss Margaret is 
with her to-day, and these are some things she 
will need. Now don’t be a bother, and don’t 
stop.” 

“ Come on down by the sap-house,” suggested 
Trudy; “ it’s cooler that way.” 

They went down the path behind the barn, say- 
ing very little. Trudy was too sorrowful to 
talk, and Timothy was trying to fit together the 
remarks he had heard about Aunt Theresy. 

On either side of the path the ground was 
white with the starry flowers of the bunch-berry; 
blue flag bloomed on the borders of the brook; 
young birds were rustling the leaves of the bushes 
in their short flights from branch to branch, try- 
ing their timid wings. Mother birds flew boldly 
before the children, pretending to be hurt in an 
effort to lead them away from the baby birds. 
In a little open space beyond the brook, where 


AND THE TREES 149 

the sun was hot, Trudy spied wild straw- 
berries. 

“ Oh, Timothy, wild strawberries! Let’s pick 
some for Aunt Theresy. She loves them, and 
maybe she could eat a few. It won’t take long 
if we both pick. And we’re almost to the sap- 
house, so we haven’t much farther to go.” 

They put the basket down by the side of the 
path and began hunting for the largest, ripest 
berries. They hurried here and there, looking 
down among the leaves for the red and fragrant 
berries, and did not notice that they were getting 
near the steam sawmill. The mill was quiet to- 
day ; no one was working, but the men were sit- 
ting out in front of the shack, smoking and talk- 
ing. In the still woods, their loud voices carried 
far. Their words made the children stop, made 
them look fearfully at each other, made them tip- 
toe carefully back toward the path. 

“ Timothy,” sobbed Trudy, “ did you hear 
them? Did you hear that awful thing they 
said? ” 

“Yes, I did!” Timothy had to stop and 
swallow the lump in his throat. “ I heard them, 


150 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

but they didn’t say she had , they only said she 
was going to, but she isn’t, not to them! ” 

“ Timothy, that’s what makes her sick. She’s 
got to sell her trees — that man said so ! ” 

“ Well, she isn't, I tell you! ” 

“ But what can we do? ” Trudy’s voice rose to 
a wail. 

“ Keep still — they’ll hear you. You stop cry- 
ing and do exactly what I tell you. This is a 
case for the club ! ” 

When the four children had come back to 
Todd’s Ferry after their Washington trip, they 
had formed a little secret club, called the ‘‘We 
Four, No More,” and had promised themselves 
to do all they could in every way to help in the 
Government work that they had learned so much 
about and found so interesting. 

Trudy’s face brightened. But she was not 
satisfied. 

“ But, Timothy, if she sells those trees, and 
those wicked men cut them down right in front of 
her own dear house, why, Timothy, she’ll die! ” 
Timothy went on. “ You take this basket and 
the berries, and go as fast as you can to Aunt 


151 


AND THE TREES 

Theresy’s and leave them, and don’t you say one 
word to anybody about what we know! ” 

“ But, Timothy, we must tell our Santa Claus 
man. He will know what to do. He can stop 
them.” 

“ Don’t you know what Amos said about Aunt 
Theresy’s being so proud? Grown folks can’t 
do this. We can! Those old lumbermen won’t 
see her while she’s sick. We won’t take any 
chances, though. Gee! This is a great piece of 
work for the Club. We can cure Aunt Theresy, 
now we know what ails her. You go on with the 
things and hustle back to the sap-house. I’ll call 
Belle and Francis, and we’ll meet you there and 
plan it, then we’ll go and tell Aunt Theresy, and 
she’ll be all right ! ” 

“ Tell her what, Timothy? ” 

“ You big ninny, don’t you know yet? Tell 
her we're going to buy the big pines, of course ! ” 


CHAPTER XII 


IN THE SAP-HOUSE 

Trudy picked up Grandmother’s basket and 
put the wild strawberries, in their green cups of 
maple leaves, on the white napkin. Timothy 
had raced away. She went on, completely be- 
wildered. She could not understand how the 
“ We Four, No More ” could possibly buy Aunt 
Theresy’s great pines. Yet she was sure that, if 
Timothy said it could be done, he would find a 
way. Hadn’t he found a way to earn the money 
to go to Washington? But she wondered how 
they would manage. She wondered so very 
much that she did not notice the dazzling white- 
edged clouds that were piling up in the west; 
she wondered so much that she almost forgot to 
speak to Amos, who was splitting wood in Aunt 
Theresy’s shed; and she did not answer until 
Miss Margaret had repeated her question. 

152 


AND THE TREES 


153 


“ Did Grandmother say she was coming over 
to-night? ” 

“ She didn’t say. Isn’t Aunt Theresy any 
better? ” 

“ No, dear, I’m afraid she isn’t. I have to go 
home to get some clothes, and I’ll stop at Grand- 
mother’s and plan about sitting up to-night. 
Mrs. Perkins stayed last night. Amos will stay 
now until I get back. Trudy, you’d better come 
along with me. I heard thunder just now.” 

“ Oh, that’s a long way off. I don’t believe it’s 
coming here. The showers generally go down 
the Merrimac. Besides, Miss Margaret, I have 
to go back to the sap-house. There’s a very im- 
portant club meeting.” 

Timothy had raced up the path and across the 
field to his own house. He called up Belle, and 
then called Francis, only to learn from Mr. 
Johnston that he was already on his way to the 
farmhouse. Impatiently he fidgeted up and 
down the road, watching. 

Belle’s mother looked out at the clouds when 
Belle announced that she was going up to the 
sap-house. “ I don’t know,” she said; “ it looks 


154 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHI 


to me like a shower, and you know, Belle, you’re 
awfully afraid of thunder.” 

But Timothy had said things that made Belle 
sure that she must go to the sap-house. She 
looked at the clouds, now turning gray, and 
slowly piling up into the blue sky Yet the sun 
was shining brightly. 

“ I can get there before the shower, Mother,” 
she said. “And maybe it will go ’round.” 

So, while Trudy was hurrying back from Aunt 
Theresy’s, and while Miss Margaret was walking 
up the road to the big house, Timothy and Fran- 
cis were striding down the path, talking fast and 
seriously and Belle was scampering through 
woods that were beginning to grow uncomfort- 
ably dark. She could not help thinking of 
Judith, who had raced with the hurricane when 
the other great trees were blown down. Then 
she thought of Aunt Theresy’s trees and what 
Timothy had said — “And she’s going to sell 
them, Belle, to those old lumbermen who bought 
your father’s woods, and that’s what is making 
her sick. We’ve got to get busy.” So she for- 
got the darkening woods and went swiftly on 


AND THE TREES 


155 


until she could see the green walls of the sap- 
house, and hear the children calling, “ Oh, Belle, 
hurry, Belle! ” 

They went in and shut the door. They pulled 
the seats up to the long table, for in summer the 
sap-house was furnished like a camp, and sat 
solemnly down. Then Belle and Francis and 
Trudy looked at Timothy and waited for him to 
speak. 

“ Well,” he said, “ you all know what we’re 
here for. I suppose you’re all willing to help.” 

There wasn’t any need to answer that. 

So Timothy went on. 

“ I haven’t had much time to think how, but, of 
course, we’ve got to buy the trees. Aunt 
Theresy won’t sell to anyone in the village; any 
grown folks, I mean, for she thinks they will buy 
them out of charity. I’ve heard Grandfather 
say so. He tried to buy them when he bought 
the sap orchard, but she said, ‘ No, they aren’t 
any use to you,’ and he knew what she meant.” 

“ Then won’t she think the same thing if we 
buy them? ” It was Francis who asked the 
question. 


156 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY. 


“ Well, you see, she knows we’re interested in 
trees and things since we came home from Wash- 
ington, and maybe she’ll be too sick to think very 
much about it. If we can only get her to sign a 
paper and take some money, she can’t go back on 
it. And when she knows the trees aren’t going 
to be cut down, she’ll get well right off.” 

“ That’s right about the paper and the money,” 
agreed Belle. “ That’s ‘ binding the bargain.’ 
I’ve heard Pa tell about that. He made the lum- 
bermen do it when ” 

“ But,” interrupted Trudy, “ where shall we 
get the money to bind the bargain? I haven’t 
any. I had my nickel for Sunday School but 
that went into the collection.” 

“ Oh, it don’t take much to bind a bargain,” 
said Timothy. “ I’ve got the three dollars and 
sixteen cents left from my trip, and that’ll do.” 
He jingled the change in his pocket. 

“How much are the trees worth?” asked 
Francis. “We ought to know how much is a 
fair price. I haven’t much money, but I can 
work this summer and earn some, and I’ll give 
you all I earn for my share.” 


AND THE TREES 


157 


“ That’s the worst of it,” grumbled Timothy. 
“We ought to offer her a fair price, and I don’t 
know how much they are worth. Oh, dear, if we 
only had Abbott here. He’d know all about it. 
He’d get out and measure those trees quick as a 
wink, and figure it all up and tell us to a cent.” 

The children sat silent, thinking. Outside, 
the clouds had covered the sun. The wind rose, 
and lashed the maple trees. The sap-house grew 
darker and darker. The thunder rolled nearer 
and nearer, but Belle did not notice it. She was 
not thinking of thunder. But, at home, her 
mother looked anxiously out of the window, and 
in the woods between her house and the sap- 
house her father was hurrying to his girl, fear- 
ing that she would be frightened, and perhaps 
hurt, in the storm that was coming so swiftly. 

“It’s dark,” said Timothy; “I can’t see my 
figures. Light the lantern, somebody.” 

Trudy lit the lantern and put it in the middle 
of the table. 

“ Well,” said Timothy at last, “ suppose we 
call it a thousand dollars. That’s an awful lot 
of money, and it will take us years and years to 


158 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


pay it, and perhaps before we get it all paid, 
Abbott will come up here and tell us if it’s right; 
and anyway, if we pay her too much, she’ll give 
it back to us. Of course, we’ll have to pay it so 
much a month.” 

“ I’ll figure it out,” said Francis. 

“ No,” said Timothy, “ that’s no use, ’cause we 
might not be able to pay the same amount each 
month. You draw up the paper. You can 
write better than we can, and we’ll tell you what 
to say.” 

Four heads, red and black, light gold and 
brown, huddled together about the smoky lantern. 
The children were so busy that they did not hear 
the thunder that was now crashing very near, or 
the rain that began to beat on the roof in great 
splashing drops. They did not hear the door of 
the sap-house open and then quickly close. They 
did not hear Mr. Perkins come in. 

What Mr. Perkins heard when he opened the 
door made him come in very softly and stand 
very still. If Mr. Perkins remembered that it 
was not right to listen, he didn’t care. He de- 
liberately listened! He wanted to hear it all. 


AND THE TREES 159 

This is what he heard when he opened the 
door. 

Francis was reading aloud. 

“ This is an agreement between Theresa Hin- 
ton, and Timothy Todd, Gertrude Todd, Belle 
Perkins and Francis Lang. Theresa Hinton 
agrees to sell the others her big pines, and they 
agree to pay her for them the sum of one thou- 
sand dollars or a fair price, as soon as they can, 
and they agree furthermore ( I know they always 
use that word) that the big pines shall never be 
cut down, as long as they all shall live.” 

Mr. Perkins leaned forward. He heard more. 

“ That sounds all right, Francis,” approved 
Timothy. “Now draw some lines for us to sign 
on. There — now all we have to do is to go over 
and get her to sign it, and we write our names, 
and that’s all there is to it.” 

“All but paying,” sighed Trudy. “ What can 
I do to get my share? ” 

“ Oh, Trudy,” cried Belle, “ we can both do the 
same thing. We can make preserves and sell 
them to the boarders. Boarders have heaps of 
money, you know, and they might just as well 


ICO TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

give us some of it, and they’re always crazy about 
home-made preserves.” 

“ Miss Fields sells preserves in her tea-room.” 

“ But you know she never has enough. We 
shouldn’t hurt her trade. And I have some per- 
fectly elegant sweet peas started, and we’ll make 
them into bunches and sell them to the boarders 
at Todd House.” 

“ I can take pictures, and finish them for other 
folks, too,” said Francis. 

“ Grandfather is going to give me five dollars 
a month for helping him this summer, and I’ll 
put that all in. I’m pretty well supplied with 
clothes ; I shan’t need to spend it.” 

“We ought to get as much as fifteen dollars, 
or perhaps twenty a month — that would be — 
twelve times fifteen ” 

“A hundred and eighty dollars a year,” quickly 
said Belle. 

“ Well, that’s not so bad. We ought to pay 
off the thousand in six years. I’ll be about 
twenty then, and of course, the older we grow, 
the more we can earn.” 

Mr. Perkins cleared his throat. 


AND THE TREES 161 

The children jumped and turned from the 
table. 

“ Why, Pa! ” said Belle, “ where did you come 
from? ” 

“ Your mother sent me up with your water- 
proof and umbrella. We’ve had a bad shower.” 

“ We have? ” said Belle. 

Timothy was watching Mr. Perkins. He was 
wondering just how long Belle’s father had been 
in the sap-house. 

“ I hope you’ll excuse me,” said Mr. Perkins, 
“ but when I came in, you were all very busy and 
I didn’t like to interrupt you. I heard what you 
said about buying Theresy’s trees.” 

Mr. Perkins stopped, and cleared his throat 
again. He seemed to have trouble with his eyes. 
Perhaps there were rain-drops in them. He 
blinked something away. 

The children looked at Timothy. 

“ Yes,” said he, “ I guess we’ve got to. You 
see we heard the lumbermen saying that she was 
going to sell the trees to them, and of course that 
is what ails her. She can’t bear to see those trees 
cut down. They shouldn’t be cut down, anyway. 


162 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

I know you don’t care about trees, Mr. Perkins, 
but I really wish you did. We don’t want the 
big pines cut down, so we are going to buy them. 
Did you hear the agreement that Francis made? 
Would you mind telling us if it is all right? ” 

“ It sounded all right to me,” said Mr. Per- 
kins decidedly. “It certainly did sound fine! 
But you ought to have someone for a witness to 
your signatures. Am I right in supposing that 
this thing has got to be done immediately? ” 

“ The sooner we do it, the sooner she will get 
well.” 

“ Then may I make a suggestion? You notice 
that the shower is over. Suppose we all go over 
to Theresy’s house, and I will be the witness. 
You know I have had a good deal of experience 
in selling trees. Maybe I might be able to help 
you out a bit.” 

Timothy stared at him. If that wasn’t a queer 
thing to say! Of course they all knew he had 
been selling trees! Hadn’t Amos and all of 
them tried to stop him? Hadn’t Timothy sent 
him post-cards of trees, and hadn’t the people in 
the Bureau of Forestry sent him dozens and 


AND THE TREES 


163 


dozens of pamphlets, telling how important trees 
were to the life of man and beast? What good 
was it all? Probably Mr. Perkins would sell 
every single tree on his place. He was a horrid 
man! Still, he did know all about agreements, 
so perhaps he might as well come along. Tim- 
othy blew out the lantern. 

“ Come on,” he said gruffly, “ let’s get started.” 
Belle slipped her hand in her father’s; some- 
Iioav she felt that he had not said all he was think- 
ing. She looked up in his face, and she was sure 
that something was making him feel happy. He 
clasped her hand close, and said, “ Be careful 
where you walk, girlie, the path is pretty wet.” 

“ Oh,” cried Francis, “ see the rainbow! ” 

It was still raining gently, soft little scatter- 
ing drops, but over in the east, where the shower 
was passing, rain fell, and through the rain- 
drops, against the clouds, arching the heavens, 
glowed the beautiful perfect bow, every color 
clear and distinct. And while they stood watch- 
ing it, another bow appeared, above, and fainter, 
but showing the whole curve, a wonderful re- 
flected rainbow. 


164 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


“ It’s a double bow,” said Trudy softly, 
“ You hardly ever see the double bow. It means 
good luck. I wonder where the end of it is. 
There’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” 

“ Gee,” said Timothy, “ if I knew where that 
pot of gold was, I’d get it and pay for the big 
pines.” 

Mr. Perkins laughed, long and hearty. 

“ The end of it’s right over Theresy’s house,” 
he said. “ Come on, we’ll find it.” 

“ Huh,” grunted Timothy scornfully, “ there’s 
no pot of gold in that house. That’s just the 
trouble.” 

“Who knows?” said Mr. Perkins, pressing 
Belle’s hand. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE POT OF GOLD 

They hurried along the path to AuntTheresy’s 
house, very quiet and thoughtful. Suddenly 
Mr. Perkins spoke. 

“ What’s the name of your club? ” 

“ We Four, No More,” replied Francis. 

“ That’s kind of a bad name if you should ever 
want to enlarge the club, isn’t it? ” 

“ We’re not going to enlarge it,” was Tim- 
othy’s answer. 

“ That’s worse ! I was going to apply for 
membership. If you would let me join your 
club, I could help buy the trees. I’d be willing 
to pay twice as much every month as you four 
earned. Wait a minute” — he hurried on as 
Timothy started to speak. “ I know what you 
are going to say. You are afraid I might want 
to hurt the trees. There isn’t a bit of danger. 
If I should want to sell them, or cut them down, 
or anything, I could not do it unless you all 
165 


166 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

agreed. Because we should have to vote on it as 
club members, and you would all vote against 
me.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Perkins,” said Trudy, “ do you 
mean it? ” 

“ Sure he means it,” said Belle. “ Pa never 
says anything unless he means it.” 

“ What do you say? ” said Mr. Perkins. 

The children looked at each other. Timothy’s 
opinion of Mr. Perkins was beginning to change. 

“ We’ll vote right now,” he announced. “All 
those in favor of admitting Mr. Perkins to mem- 
bership in the ‘ We Four, No More ’ will show 
it by saying ‘Aye.’ ” 

The “Aye ” was so loud that Mr. Perkins 
looked about uneasily. 

“Hush!” he cautioned. “Don’t shout so 
loud. We’re almost there.” 

“ Mr. Perkins,” said Timothy seriously, “ are 
you sure you want to pay all that money? We’re 
going to earn all we possibly can, you know. 
And Belle said that your new automobile stage 
was pretty expensive.” 

Mr. Perkins assured him. “ It’s all right. I 


AND THE TREES 


167 


can afford it. And the more you earn, the more 
I’ll pay, and the sooner Aunt Theresy will get 
her money. Hush, now, the windows are open.” 

They had reached the house. They went in 
through the shed door. Amos heard them, and 
came out from the bedroom where he had been 
sitting with Aunt Theresy. He shut the door 
behind him. 

“ What’s all this? ” he said softly, “ a surprise 
party? Sorry, but the lady of the house is hardly 
up to a party to-night. I’m nurse while Miss 
Margaret is home getting some supplies.” 

“ Oh, Amos,” said Trudy, clasping his arm, 
“ we have come to make Aunt Theresy all well. 
We know what is the matter, and we know how 
to cure her, and, oh, Amos, dear Mr. Perkins is 
going to help ! " 

Amos stared at dear Mr. Perkins. 

“ She’s right,” he agreed. “And we’re all go- 
ing in now to see Theresy. She will be glad to 
see us, and it won’t do her a bit of harm.” 

“ I don’t know about that,” said Amos ; “ she 
doesn’t seem to take any interest in anything.” 

“ Well,” said Timothy emphatically, “ I guess 


168 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

she will take an interest when we tell her we’re 
going to buy the big pines and save them from 
those miserable old lumbermen! ” 

And then Amos stared at dear Mr. Perkins 
harder than ever. 

Mr. Perkins turned red. 

“ Guess your talks must have done some good, 
Amos,” he said, “ though you thought you didn’t 
make much headway. They say you can’t teach 
an old dog new tricks, but these youngsters and 
you seem to be teaching me a few. Come on in 
with us and hear the story. I promise you it 
won’t hurt Theresy. It will cure her, just as 
they say.” 

Amos opened the door. 

Very quietly they all went into Aunt Theresy’s 
bedroom. It was a corner room, with two win- 
dows. One faced the field, and the blinds of that 
one were open; the other looked toward the big 
pines, and the blinds of that were shut tight. 

Aunt Theresy lay in the big high bed, so white 
and frail. Her eyes were shut. She did not 
open them until Amos said, “ Theresy, here’s 
some company for you.” 


AND THE TREES 


169 


She looked at them without turning her head. 
She smiled a little. The children turned to Mr. 
Perkins. “ Tell her,” said Belle. “ Oh, Pa, tell 
her quick! ” 

Mr. Perkins went over to the bed. 

“ Theresy,” he said, smiling, “ these children 
have brought you a new prescription, and you’re 
going to take a big dose this very minute, and 
it’s going to put you on your feet. It’s the very 
best kind of medicine in the whole world. It’s 
made of love and kindness, and helpfulness and 
brotherly feeling; Theresy, they have found out 
your secret that we blundering busy old folks 
never guessed. They overheard the lumbermen 
saying that you were going to sell the pines.” 

And then a terrible thing happened. Aunt 
Theresy began to cry. If it had been dreadful 
to see her crying in the kitchen, all dressed and 
with her blue-checked apron on, it was just un- 
bearable to see her cry now, when she was sick 
and in bed. 

“ But, darling Aunt Theresy,” cried Trudy, 
running to her and climbing on the bed, “ you’re 
not going to do it! No, indeed, we’re going to 


170 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY \ 


buy them ourselves; the club, you know, the ‘ We 
Four, No More’ that went to Washington and 
learned about trees and things. We’re going to 
have them for our very own, and we’re going to 
keep them always, and we’re going to pay you for 
them every month. You won’t mind having the 
money a little at a time, will you? ’Cause you 
know you’ll get it all in time, and darling Aunt 
Theresy, Belle’s father is going to help us! ” 

“ Oh, children, you blessed children, to think of 
such a beautiful plan. But I can’t let you do it. 
It isn’t right to burden you with my troubles. 

No, I’ve made up my mind ” 

Amos slipped up and raised her on the pillows. 
He arranged them behind her, and then he, too, 
sat on the edge of the bed. 

“ Theresy,” he said, “ these children love the 
trees as much as you do. They love you, too. 
And they love Todd’s Ferry. It is their home. 
They are proud of it, and want to do all they can 
for it. You know that — they proved that last 
year. They prove it every day. They are 
growing up and you and I are growing older. 
Some day they will take our places. If now. 



“YOU BLESSED CHILDREN, TO THINK OF SUCH A BEAUTIFUL PLAN 



AND THE TREES 


171 


while they are young, they want to do this thing 
for the home we all love, who are we to stop 
them? Theresy, all your life you have kept the 
trees and guarded them. You are not going to 
forsake them now, simply because you’re proud? 
Let the children guard them. No one could do 
it better.” 

J ust as the rainbow had appeared through the 
shower, Aunt Theresy’s smile crept out through 
her tears. She pushed Amos away and sat up- 
right. It was as Mr. Perkins had said. The 
medicine the children had brought was indeed 
wonderful. You could see Aunt Theresy grow 
better. 

“Amos,” she said, “ you old fraud, I believe 
you planned this.” 

“ I wish I had,” he said. “ But I never heard 
of it until this delegation walked in on me in 
the shed. I tried to keep them away from you, 
but now I’m glad they came.” 

“ Oh, so am I,” Aunt Theresy answered. 
“ You blessed friends, how can I say no any 
longer? Of course I’ll sell you the trees. And 
won’t somebody open the front blinds so I can 


172 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

see them? I can look at them now without 
imagining them crashing to earth.” 

Timothy threw open the blinds. There, across 
the road, mighty and strong, were the great 
trunks, ribbed with the bark of the growth of 
years. Safe they stood, and safe would they 
stand until the years alone should make them 
fall! 

“ Well,” said Timothy, pulling a paper from 
his pocket, “ let’s get busy and finish things up! 
Here’s the agreement, Aunt Theresy, and here’s 
three dollars and sixteen cents to bind the bar- 
gain. You sign your name here. Get her a 
pen, Amos.” 

He laid the paper and the money on the bed. 

Aunt Theresy looked bewildered. 

“ They fixed it all up themselves, Theresy,” 
explained Mr. Perkins. “ It was all done when 
I blundered in on them. Francis wrote the 
agreement, and it seems to me to cover every- 
thing. Amos and I will witness the signatures, 
and nobody will want to dispute it, I’m sure.” 

“ But there isn’t any need of such a hurry,” 
she said, “and this money ” then she laughed. 


AND THE TREES 


173 


“ I suppose it’s business. Give me the pen, 
Amos. Is this where I sign? ” 

“ Right here!” Timothy watched her while she 
wrote, in fine old-fashioned writing, “ Theresa 
Hinton,” and then seized the pen. 

“ Come on, everybody, hurry up ! ” 

When the last signature had been blotted, Mr. 
Perkins looked at his watch. 

“ We’d better be getting out of here,” he said, 
“ but before we go, I want to ask a favor of you. 
All of you. Will you please keep this whole 
transaction a secret? Will you please keep this 
visit to-day a secret? Can you? Can you earn 
your money and carry out your plans without 
telling anyone? I can’t tell you why I’m asking 
this, but I have a good reason, and just as soon 
as possible I will tell you what it is. We might 
have this club a secret order, and have this for one 
of the secrets. That is, if we were all members 
of the club. But Theresy and Amos are not 
members.” 

“ Well, they can be,” cried Timothy. “ Now 
we’ve started to grow, we might as well have some 
more members.” 


174 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


“ Oh, I know a lovely plan,” said Belle. 
“ Let’s change the name and call it the ‘ We 
Four, Lots More,’ and have our principal object 
to work for the trees, all kinds of trees.” 

“ Say, Perkins,” said Amos, “ as a member of 
this club, I can’t see where you can sell off 
lumber the way you have been doing, can 
you? ” 

So the name was changed and two more mem- 
bers were added to the club. Then Mr. Perkins 
and the children hurried out the back door, first 
looking to see if Miss Margaret were anywhere 
in sight. 

When she came back, Aunt Theresy was 
asleep. Her cheeks were pink, and when Miss 
Margaret exclaimed, “ Why, how different she 
looks,” Amos replied carelessly, “ She took some 
toast and malted milk before she went to sleep.” 

“ Toast and malted milk? I haven’t been able 
to get her to take a thing! ” 

And when Aunt Theresy woke, Miss Mar- 
garet could not understand what had caused the 
wonderful change. She seemed like herself. 
The worry and sadness were gone, and she began 


AND THE TREES 175 

to plan what to do when she was up and around 
the house. 

“Amos Bean!” Miss Margaret demanded, in 
the kitchen, “ what did you do or say to her to 
work this miracle? ” 

“ I couldn’t say,” was his truthful answer, 
“ but haven’t you ever noticed that sometimes 
things seem to have their run, and after they have 
been just as bad as they could be, they take a 
turn for the better? Probably it’s that way with 
Theresy.” And not another word would he say. 

The children and Mr. Perkins were all late to 
supper. They were all scolded, and asked, 
“ Where have you been all this time? ” Now, of 
course, they could not tell what had really hap- 
pened, so, each one, as they had planned on the 
way back from Aunt Theresy’s, replied, “ Well, 
we had a very important club meeting, and it 
lasted longer than we thought it would.” 

“ Club meeting! ” said Grandmother, as Tim- 
othy filled the wood-box, whistling as he had not 
whistled for many a day, “ you’d better not let 
that club take all your time.” But to Grand- 
father she said, “ It seems to be a good thing, 


176 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

after all. He hasn’t filled that box like that for 
one good while.” 

And Mrs. Perkins, taking the supper from the 
oven, where she had been keeping it warm, said, 
“ Pa, I sent you to bring Belle home, not to go 
traipsing all over creation with her. I suppose 
you’ll be joining that precious club, next.” And 
Belle tried so hard not to laugh that she choked 
and had to be patted on the back, and drink 
water, and wipe tears from her eyes. 

When Trudy ran into the little red house call- 
ing “ Good-night ” to Francis, who was hurrying 
up the path across the fields, Mother said, “ I was 
just going to send Father after you, dear. You 
must not stay so late at the club. It is too far 
away.” 

Trudy told her that Mr. Perkins had walked 
part way home with them, and promised not to 
stay again, and then she said, 4 4 Oh, Mother dear, 
aren’t the folks in Todd’s Ferry just lovely? ” 
But when Mother agreed with her and asked her 

why, she said, 44 Oh, — because ” and hugged 

Mother very tight indeed. 

Amos, walking home through the starry 


AND THE TREES 


177 


twilight, thought so too; but most of all did 
Aunt Theresy think it as she lay resting in her 
bed, quiet and happy, listening to the gentle 
wind singing in her tall pines. As she grew 
drowsy, the pines seemed to say, over and over, 
“ Friends — friends — your friends — our friends — 
true friends ” — until she slept and waked again 
to a new and joyful day. 


CHAPTER XIV 


KEEPING A SECRET 

“ Francis/' said Timothy, “ is everybody 
pestering you to know what you are doing with 
all your money? It’s pretty fierce with me! 
I’m trying to earn all I can for the trees, and 
folks keep asking me what I’ve done with the 
other money I earned last week. I’m afraid 
Grandmother will make me put some in the bank. 
And the kids call me ‘ Miser Todd ’ ! ” 

It was a fine July day. White clouds floated 
in the blue sky, and the west wind gently moved 
the tree-tops. By the brook, where Francis and 
Timothy were taking a short cut to Belle’s house, 
the spotted jewel-weed climbed over the rocks, 
and on the hillside red wood lilies swayed on their 
long stems. 

The boys were going to a meeting of the club. 
The children had been busy during the last days 
of school, and had had little time to earn money 
until lately. During the last of June and the 
first of J uly they had tried in every possible way 
178 


179 


AND THE TREES 

to swell the fund for the trees. They had man- 
aged to get eight dollars, and Mr. Perkins had 
promptly added sixteen; Aunt Theresy had 
signed a receipt for twenty-four dollars “ on ac- 
count/’ and Timothy had filed it away with the 
precious agreement. 

“ Sir. J ohnston hasn’t said anything about 
money,” Francis answered Timothy, after a 
pause, “ but when I asked Miss Margaret if I 
might use the old barn to print pictures in, and 
she found out I was going to develop and print 
for the summer boarders, she thought it would be 
too hard for me. I don’t think she likes it very 
well.” 

“ It’s an awful nuisance keeping it a secret,” 
grumbled Timothy. “ I don’t see why Sir. 
Perkins won’t let us tell. We needn’t mention 
him, if he doesn’t want folks to know he is init. 
We could just say we were going to buy the 
trees and we needed the money. I thought at 
first it would be fun to have a secret society, but 
it’s getting to be something terrible.” 

“ Trudy’s mother said, the other day, the girls 
were regular money-grabbers,” Francis con- 


180 TRUDY, AND TIMOTHY, 


tinued, “ because they are making preserves to 
sell. And then, you know, they are filling those 
ferneries for Miss Fields, and she pays them for 
that.” 

They were at the sap-house now. Through 
the quiet of the woods came loud shouts, and the 
sounds of tearing wood and squealing nails. 

“ There’s something doing at the sawmill,” 
cried Timothy. “ Come on up and see what 
it is.” 

At the sawmill, men were hurrying about, 
taking down the machinery. The sawyer him- 
self was overseeing the work, and he recognized 
the boys. He was not at all pleased to see 
them. In fact, he was very cross. 

“ Now don’t hang around here! ” he shouted. 
“ You’ll get hurt. This is no place for kids. 
Get right out! We’re in a hurry, and you’re 
liable to have something fall on you.” 

“ Going away? ” asked Timothy, perching on 
a stump. 

“ Yes — and as fast as we can!” snapped the 
sawyer. “ Been hanging ’round here for weeks, 
thinking we could get those big pines over yon- 


AND THE TREES 


181 


der. The old lady was all ready to sell, too, 
when she was taken sick, so I waited till she was 
better, and then, by gracious, she changed her 
mind. Can’t find out what made her. No one 
seems to know anything about it. And Perkins 
went back on his bargain — at least, he led me to 
expect he’d sell more, and then he changed his 
mind. Never saw such people! Get out of the 
way now; we’re going to load the engine on that 
bogie.” 

Timothy slipped from the stump. He took a 
folded leaflet from his pocket. 

“ It’s pretty dirty,” he said; “ I’ve been carry- 
ing it around a long time, but I guess you can 
read it. My friend, the Senator from New 
Hampshire, gave it to me. I’ll give it to you. 
You can keep it. It tells the right way and the 
wrong way to cut timber. Well, good-bye. 
I’m glad you didn’t get the big trees. They 
look better where they are.” 

He laid the leaflet on a rock and scampered 
away. 

The boys chuckled. “ That secret isn’t so bad, 
after all, is it, Timothy? ” said Francis. 


182 TRUDY. AND TIMOTHY 

And then they heard a call and saw Amos com- 
ing from the schoolhouse woods. 

“ Where’s Trudy? ” he said. “ I’ve found 
some pretty little pieces of fungus for her 
ferneries. And some checkerberry and twin- 
flower.” 

Belle and Trudy were gathering odd little vines 
and flowers for Miss Fields, who arranged them 
in glass bowls and sold them in her tea-room. 
They roamed the fields and woods and swamps, 
finding pitcher-plant with its weird pitchers of 
sweet sticky liquid, little ferns, streamers of 
partridge-berry, and always hunting for some 
brilliant fungus that would give an odd touch 
to the loveliness of the fernery. Amos, as he 
drove over his fish-route, kept a sharp lookout 
and often stopped his horse to climb up a bank 
for some treasure. 

Belle made delicious little sandwiches and 
someone found it out. Soon the boarders were 
coming to Mrs. Perkins’ door, and saying, “ Oh, 
Mrs. Perkins, could Belle make us some sand- 
wiches for a little picnic to-morrow? Mrs. Green 
had some for her little girl’s birthday party, and 


AND THE TREES 


188 


they were the dearest things. What a capable 
little daughter you have, Mrs. Perkins ! ” And 
Belle would whisper to her father that another 
dollar had been added to the tree fund, and he 
would hug her up, and point his right forefinger 
toward the sky. Belle would point skywards 
too, and Mrs. Perkins would stare up and see 
nothing, and wonder what they were pointing at, 
and she would stare and say, “Are you two 
crazy? ” 

But that was the sign of the club. Mr. Per- 
kins had invented it. He said that all secret 
orders had a “ high sign,” and if theirs couldn’t 
have a high sign, it was no good. And their secret 
was about something exceedingly high, so they 
pointed as high as they could. The sign meant 
“ High up, like the tops of our trees, and going 
up, like the amount of money we’re raising.” 

Amos went along with the boys to the meeting. 
They stopped at the store for a drink of water, 
and to chat with Mr. McAdam, then went up the 
road to Belle’s house. The boys were playing 
ball on the village green, and Dave Little and 
Henry White hailed Timothy. 


184 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

“Hey, Timothy, come on over and practise! 
The boarders have challenged us, and we want 
you for pitcher. We haven’t got a decent 
pitcher. Ben Dobson is too busy to play.” 

“ I’m too busy, too,” said Timothy, hurrying 
up the road, for oh, how he did want to stay and 
play ball. And he didn’t feel any better when 
the boys jeered after him, “Miser! Old Mi- 
ser Todd! ” 

Belle had news. 

“ Listen,” she said; “ have you heard what they 
are going to do for Old Home Week? Of course 
you haven’t, because the committee met here only 
last night. You know we never had an Old 
Home Week before, so everybody wants to make 
it a success. They made lots of plans, and Pa is 
on ever so many committees. I heard them tell 
him to write to the Senator — you know, our Sen- 
ator who gave us our tickets to the Members’ 
Gallery — and ask him to come up here and make 
a speech. They are going to have a different 
celebration for each day, and it will last three 
days. The first day will be a get-acquainted 
day, like a big picnic, in the grove where we have 


185 


AND THE TREES 

the Fourth of July exercises, or in the Town 
Hall, if it rains; one day they are going to have 
a pageant in the meadow where the movie people 
had their village; and the last day isn’t decided 
yet. Pa said he’d be responsible for that day, so 
they left it to him. He’s been home all day, 
writing letters, and he wouldn’t let me help him, 
and I always do. What do you suppose he’s go- 
ing to have for his celebration? ” 

“ Isn’t Mr. Johnston on any committee? ” 

“ Oh, yes, on almost all of them. And there’s 
a big committee of women to plan for the food, 
and they are going to find out where everybody 
is who ever lived in Todd’s Ferry, and write let- 
ters to them, asking them to come back for Old 
Home Week.” 

“ Perhaps your father was writing those let- 
ters.” 

“ No, because he isn’t on that committee.” 

“ Oh, gee! Won’t it be great! ” 

“Oh!” Trudy exclaimed, “why don’t we 
write to Stanley Blake and the movie people, and 
ask them to come? ” 

“ Perhaps they would take some pictures.” 


186 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

“ Perhaps Claire and Isabelle eould come. 
Oh, I wish they would! I’d love to see 
them.” 

“ Who’s going to get up the pageant? ” Tim- 
othy inquired. 

“ Miss Fields. It’s going to be the history of 
Todd’s Ferry. Amos is to be the first settler” 
— Amos looked rather surprised, but he did not 
refuse. “ You know, Amos, old Adoniram Todd 
who came in here with his axe on his shoulder, 
seeking a place to settle, and found the lake and 
the springs, and cleared a spot for his house, and 
then went back after the house was built and 
brought his wife to live here. And there will be 
lots of dances, and costumes, and spirits of the 
woods, and spirits of the trees, and the water; 
and, oh, I don’t know it all, but it’s going to be 
perfectly lovely, and I do hope it won’t rain and 
spoil everything.” 

“ When is it?” 

“ The last of August.” 

“ Oh, there won’t be any rain at that time. 
August is generally a pretty dry month, except 
for thunder-showers.” 


AND THE TREES 187 

“Thunder-showers!” the girls cried out to- 
gether. 

“ Why, Timothy, a thunder-storm would be 
the worst thing of all. It would catch the audi- 
ence and the performers, and everybody.” 

How Timothy laughed at them. “ It hasn’t 
come yet,” he said, “ so don’t squeal before you 
are hurt. I’ve got to be getting home. Come 
on, Trudy. Let’s stop at the store and see if 
there is any mail.” 

The stage had just arrived, so they waited for 
Mr. McAdam to sort the letters. There was a 
good deal of mail for the three houses, and they 
looked it over as they walked up the road. They 
met other people coming down to the village for 
mail, and to the tea-room for tea and souvenirs. 
Still others were sauntering back to the board- 
ing-houses, reading their letters and papers. 
Suddenly everyone looked up, for Timothy had 
given a great shout. 

“Look at this!” he cried. “ Oh, come here! 
Come here! I’ve got a letter from Abbott 
Kimball! Here’s his name, right on the en- 
velope.” 


188 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


“ Well, open it,” begged Trudy. “ See what 
he says.” 

“Gee!” mused Timothy, turning the letter 
over and over, “ it’s postmarked California. He 
must have gone back there.” 

“ Open it — open it, you goose! ” 

“Oh, say — listen to this — ‘Dear Tim’ (you 
know he’s the only one that ever calls me Tim) : 
‘When you receive this letter, I shall be on 
my way East, as I start to-morrow. My boss, 
our Uncle Sam, has given me another assignment 
up your way. I am coming into New Hamp- 
shire to do a bit of work, and may get around to 
see you. If I walk into your kitchen some even- 
ing, do you suppose your grandmother would 
give me any supper? ’ ” 

Would she? Well, would she? The children 
broke into a run. They raced all the way home, 
rushing into the farmhouse with the marvellous 
news and all talking at once. When Grand- 
mother and Grandfather at last understood what 
it was all about, Grandfather said gravely, 
“ Well, I suppose we could do as we did when 
Claire and Isabelle came. We could put him in 


AND THE TREES 


189 


the trundle-bed. But, maybe, being a Forest 
Ranger, he’d feel more at home out-of-doors. 
Of course, we couldn’t furnish him with any very 

wild animals — only foxes and skunks, but ” 

“ I don’t know about that,” said Grandmother. 
“ I think you children are pretty good substitutes 
for wild animals at this present minute. Calm 
down, now. Timothy, you do your chores. I 
couldn’t cook a supper for Abbott unless I had a 
full wood-box.” 


CHAPTER XV 


MR. PERKINS MAKES UP HIS MIND 

Trudy could hardly believe her ears when Mr. 
Perkins called her on the telephone at ten o’clock 
in the morning. Usually at that time he was at 
the station, fussing about the stage and waiting 
for the train from the city. But it really was 
Mr. Perkins, for he said so. He said, “ Hello, 
Trudy, is this you? Can you come to the sap- 
house this afternoon at two o’clock sharp? Very 
important meeting of the club. Don’t forget, 
now. Good-bye.” 

He called Timothy and Francis too, for Trudy 
telephoned them as soon as she could get the line. 
They could not imagine what it was about. 
Francis said that he knew that Ben Dobson and 
Bill were driving the stage, for they had been up 
to get some express parcels for Mr. Johnston. 
The only thing to do was to wait; but, of course, 
no one could wait till two o’clock. 

190 


AND THE TREES 191 

It was not much after one when the three chil- 
dren started down the path behind Grandfather’s 
barn. All the way, they talked and wondered, 
but could think of no reason for the meeting. 

“ It can’t be anything to do with Old Home 
Week,” said Timothy, “ because the grown folks 
are running that.” 

“ Oh, I do hope nothing is going to happen to 
the trees,” said Trudy. “ You don’t suppose 
Mr. Perkins has changed his mind, do you? ” 

“ He can’t,” Timothy said decidedly, “ because 
we won’t vote to let him, and he said himself 
everything should be decided by vote.” 

Early as they were, Mr. Perkins and Belle 
were there before them. They had never seen 
Mr. Perkins quite as he was this afternoon. His 
eyes were twinkling, and he laughed a great deal, 
and joked, so they knew there was nothing serious 
the matter. But he would not say why he had 
called the meeting. 

“ Open the door, Timothy,” he said, “ and 
leave it open so the others will know we are here. 
We’re a little early, but it’s a nice day to be out. 
Let’s stroll around a bit, and look at the scenery. 


192 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

Mr. Johnston has cleared the spring up fine, 
hasn’t he? And what a nice view you get of the 
tops of the big pines, don’t you? Really, I’m 
quite proud of the big pines ; I’ve been noticing 
how many places you can see them from — pretty 
nearly all over town.” 

“ What are we going to do? ” demanded Tim- 
othy. “ Who else is coming? ” 

Mr. Perkins laughed. “ Wait,” he said. 
“ The other members of the club must be here 
before we can proceed to business.” 

Soon they saw Amos strolling up from the 
brook. In his hand he had a bunch of green 
leaves and flowers that looked like soft white 
round balls, with hundreds of tiny spikes sticking 
out all over them. “ Euttonbush,” he said to 
Francis; “ it grows in wet places. I followed the 
brook up from the village and picked a posy on 
the way. Found a nest or two, and in the 
meadow picked up a four-leaved clover. Ought 
to have good luck to-day. Hullo, Perkins, 
what’s up?” 

The children were teasing Belle to tell them, 
but she knew no more than they did ; so they had 


AND THE TREES 


198 


to wait until they saw Aunt Theresy coming 
along the path. She waved her hand, and they 
all went to meet her. Mr. Perkins’ eyes twin- 
kled now, and he took her by the arm. 44 Come 
on,” he called to the others, “ might as well go in 
and get seats. The show is about to begin.” 

Inside the sap-house they seated Aunt Theresy 
at the head of the long table. Mr. Perkins and 
Amos drew up chairs, and Mr. Perkins said sol- 
emnly, “ Members, be seated.” 

And then they discovered that there was one 
chair too many. 44 Leave it,” said Mr. Perkins; 
“ it will soon be occupied.” He looked out the 
door. “ It will be occupied immediately,” he 
told them, and stood aside as the Santa Claus 
man entered, bowed solemnly, and took the 
empty chair. 

Mr. Perkins rapped on the table. 

“ Members of the 4 We Four, Lots More ’ 
Club,” he said, 44 and friend,” he bowed to Mr. 
Johnston, who bowed again. “A serious matter 
has come to my attention. I am told, on good 
authority, that the members of this organization 
are getting tired of keeping secrets.” 


194 


TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


Timothy glared at Belle, who looked away. 

“ I am sorry to hear that,” went on Mr. Per- 
kins, “ because I was going to propose something 
for the club to do in connection with Old Home 
Week, but it would be ab-so-lute-ly necessary to 
keep it a secret among the persons here present, 
if we decide to do it. Of course, if you are tired 
of keeping secrets, that ends the matter, but I am 
very much disappointed, for I feel sure that this 
proposition is one that you would all like.” 

“ What is it? ” cried Timothy. “ I only said 
it was getting awful hard to earn money without 

telling ” He suddenly stopped. He had 

forgotten that Mr. Johnston did not belong to 
the club. 

Trudy had been watching the men and had 
seen the glance that Mr. Perkins had given to 
Mr. Johnston when he bowed. She suspected 
that Mr. Johnston knew the plan, and that was 
enough for her. “ Tell us about it,” she said. “ I 
guess we can keep another secret until Old Home 
Week. That isn’t a very long time.” 

Then Mr. Perkins became serious. 

“ I hope you can,” he told them, “ for this is a 


195 


AND THE TREES 

plan that is very dear to me. I want you to 
agree to it. I have been thinking about it ever 
since the day you elected me to membership in 
the club. I have been making a few inquiries to 
see if it could be carried out, and I am assured 
that it can. Now the whole matter rests with 
you. I have talked it over with Aunt Theresy, 
and she approves. The matter is this. I want 
to buy the big pines myself and give them and 
the land about them to the town of Todd’s Ferry 
for a public park.” 

“ Ooh — ooh ” such a gasp from four chil- 
dren ! The grown-ups were watching them and 
saying never a word. 

“ Wait — don’t speak yet.” Mr. Perkins 
raised his hand. “ Of course, we could do it to- 
gether. I realize that you four children thought 
of the plan to buy them, but that was wholly to 
help our dear Theresy. No, I haven’t told Mr. 
Johnston a word about that, you can tell him 
later,” and he turned to Mr. Johnston who was 
looking bewildered enough. “ That’s another 
story, Mr. Johnston. Now let me go on before 
I get mixed. Theresy could give them to the 


196 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

town, but then she wouldn’t get any money for 
them, and I shouldn’t be in it at all. Now The- 
resy needs the money, and I need — oh, more than 
you can ever guess — I need to tell my fellow- 
townsmen that I’m not so black as I’m painted. 
You see, I did sell off timber in a most reckless 
manner and never thought much about it, al- 
though Amos, here, and Turner and lots of 
others used to say what they thought of me. But 
when the youngsters began to see that it was 
foolish, if not wicked, and began to care enough 
about an old fellow like me — it was the trees they 
cared for most, I guess — but anyway they sent 
me stuff from Washington, and post-cards for 
my collection, I began to think a little. After 
that, I came up here one day and found them — 
well, anyway, I thought more and more, and now 
I want to make up to the town as best I can. I 
want to buy those trees and a good part of the 
surrounding land, and give it to the people of 
Todd’s Ferry as a park. And I want to do it 
for part of the celebration of Old Home Week. 
I’d like to have it a secret, as I said, but if you 
children are tired of keeping secrets ” 


197 


AND THE TREES 

He could not go on. For all four children 
were clinging to him, and talking at once, while 
Mr. Johnston was begging somebody to tell him 
what it was all about. 

“ Oh, Belle/’ cried Trudy, dancing about the 
room, “ isn’t your father just the grandest man? 
And you didn’t know a thing about it? ” 

“ No, but I suspected he was up to something. 
And you’d better let him do it. When Pa makes 
up his mind, nothing can stop him.” 

“ Who wants to stop him? ” shouted Timothy. 

“ Will you tell me what you are talking 
about? ” said Mr. Johnston, seizing Francis as he 
whirled by him, for all the children were racing 
up and down the sap-house like mad creatures. 
They stopped — no one exactly wanted to 
tell their plans for saving the trees. Amos 
spoke. 

“ Perhaps I’d better be the one to explain,” he 
said. “You see, these youngsters found out 
that Aunt Theresy was worrying herself sick 
over fear that she would have to sell her big 
pines ” 

“ I should have had to sell them,” interrupted 


198 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


Aunt Theresy. “ I had already made up my 
mind to that, and had almost told the lumber- 
men so.” 

“ They found it out,” Amos went on, “ and 
having had a good example in helping others set 
them by a man named Johnston, they decided 
that something must be done. They felt that we 
old folks had enough expense, so they simply 
planned to buy the trees themselves and pay for 
them as soon as they could. That is why they 
have been so anxious to earn money; every cent 
has gone toward the purchase of the big 
pines ” 

“ But Mr. Perkins helped, oh, he helped lots,” 
Trudy cried, “ for when we were talking it over 
here in the sap-house there was an awful shower 
and he came up after Belle, and he heard us and 
wanted to help, so we all went over and told Aunt 
Theresy, and Amos was there, and it was all set- 
tled, and it has been fun, and it was splendid to 
think the trees were ours, but it will be better for 
them to be everybody’s.” 

And now it was Mr. Perkins’ turn to be em- 
barrassed. He had tried to stop Trudy when 


199 


AND THE TREES 

she told of his share, but she went right on and 
told everything. 

Aunt Theresy got out of her chair and came 
round the table to him. “ Oh, Cephas, Cephas,” 
she said, “ when you came to talk about buying 
for the town you never said you had a hand in the 
children’s scheme. Oh, how many good friends 
I have! ” 

Mr. Johnston had another attack of that hay 
fever that sometimes bothered him. He sniffed 
and coughed and wiped his eyes. And he said, 
“ Theresy, I don’t wonder you got well after 
taking that prescription.” 

Mr. Perkins said, “ Well, well, then you all 
agree to let me have my way? ” 

“ Vote — vote,” said Amos. “All in favor of 
having Mr. Cephas Perkins buy the Big Pines 
and give them to Todd’s Ferry on Old Home 
Week for a public park will manifest it by sitting 
down and talking business.” 

So once more there was another plan made in 
the sap-house. Mr. Johnston said he would have 
the proper papers made out, and Mr. Perkins 
said he would guarantee that the selectmen would 


200 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

agree, and that the Senator had promised to come 
and make a speech. Then Mr. Johnston rose 
and said that it might be possible to have some 
pictures taken for the Government, as his friend 
Stanley Blake would be in the near neighborhood 
at that time, and he would try to have him present 
on that day. 

“And maybe Abbott will be here too,” said 
Timothy excitedly. “ He wrote me a letter and 
said so.” 

“ Did he? ” said Mr. Johnston. “ If Abbott 
comes, I’ll have him look over my Christmas- 
tree farm. We can’t let a Forest Ranger 
into town without making use of his knowl- 
edge.” 

“ I’ll have him look over my land that has been 
cut,” Mr. Perkins said; “ he will be able to give 
me advice on re-foresting.” 

“ Hear that? ” whispered Timothy to Francis. 
“ Hear him say ‘ re-foresting’ ? He wouldn’t use 
that word if he hadn’t been reading the stuff I 
sent him.” 

“ Oh, by the way,” added Mr. Perkins, as they 
all rose to go home, “ we haven’t really decided 


AND THE TREES 201 

after all — you didn’t say whether you could keep 
another secret.” 

And then he had to run from them. But be- 
fore he could get out the door, Mr. Johnston 
barred the way. “ Well,” he said, “ has this se- 
cret anything to do with this business?” He 
raised his right forefinger to the sky. “ I’ve seen 
a lot of that lately.” 

“ It’s the sign of the club. We point to the 
tops of the pines.” 

“ It’s a good sign. If you will elect me a 
member of the club I’ll have some pins made, so 
we can each wear one. I hardly think they will 
be ready before Old Home Week, but perhaps 
you won’t mind waiting.” 

“ Just a minute,” said Mr. Perkins as Timothy 
was locking the door. “ If I am to buy the big 
pines, you must take back the money you have 
paid in and let me pay the whole price. Oh, yes, 
it wouldn’t be legal any other way.” 

“ No, that wouldn’t be fair. Why, we earned 
it for that; we didn’t earn it for ourselves. No, 
we can’t do that.” 

“ I know,” said Timothy. “ Don’t they al- 


202 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

ways have a tablet or something telling about 
who gave the land? Like those in Washington 
that mark historic places? Let’s use our money 
for one of those.” 

“ A granite one from the quarry ! ” 

“ With gold letters on it! ” 

“ Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Right here 
in Todd’s Ferry.” 

“And people will come from all around to see 
it and to see the trees.” 

“ My gracious ! Maybe they will come from 
miles and miles away.” 

“ You can’t tell who might come to see the 
Todd’s Ferry Park! Or what might happen! ” 

“ I guess that’s right,” agreed Mr. Johnston; 
<? you can’t tell what may happen when these 
youngsters get to making plans.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


OLD HOME WEEK 

It had seemed an easy thing to say that the 
money earned by the children, and used as part 
payment for the pines, could be taken for a tablet 
to mark the land that Mr. Perkins was going to 
give the town; but the grown-ups realized that 
getting the tablet ready in a few weeks was no 
easy task. But the Santa Claus man did it. 
And he did it so easily, too. Probably that was 
because he had Santa’s own jolly way of getting 
people to help him. 

First, he got a stone-cutter from Concord to 
come to Todd’s Ferry; then he had a conference 
with Mr. Perkins and decided exactly what to 
say on the tablet. He and Miss Margaret 
planned the inscription, and gave the design to 
the stone-cutter. 

The man said, “ Pretty short notice. I don’t 
203 


204 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


know whether I can get it out on time or not.” 
But Mr. Johnston only said, “ Well, do the best 
you can.” Then he sat down on a big rough 
granite block near where the man was working 
and watched him for a long time. After awhile, 
he said, “ Have a cigar, won’t you? And take a 
rest while I tell you the history of this tablet. 
But don’t mention it to any of the townspeople, 
for it is a secret. I thought you might like to 
hear about it, as long as you are a part of it.” 

Then he told him about the trees, and about the 
children’s plan to help Aunt Theresy, and about 
Mr. Perkins, and then he stood up and stretched 
and said, “ I must be going along. Do the best 
you can, won’t you? ” And the stone-cutter an- 
swered, “ I surely will, and look here, Mr. Johns- 
ton, this tablet is going to be done on time! ” 

The quarry was so far away from the village, 
and to climb to it was so rocky and steep that 
very few boarders came there; and just at this 
particular time everyone was busy getting ready 
for the Old Home Week celebration. So no one 
bothered the stone-cutter as he chipped and pol- 
ished and scraped, and sang at his work. 


AND THE TREES 


205 


Through the long hot summer days he was alone 
in the quarry, and at night he strolled down to 
Mr. Perkins’ house, where he was boarding. 

The children came often to see him, and were 
much interested in the progress of the work. 
Even Francis was able to scramble up to the 
quarry now, and the boys blazed a trail along the 
easiest route up the hill. They talked over the 
plans for Old Home Week, and told the stone- 
cutter about the pageant that Miss Fields was 
preparing. 

“ It’s going to be great,” declared TimotHy, 
“ even if there is a lot of dancing in it, because 
it’s going to be in that big field where the moving- 
picture people were. You know I told you we 
had a moving-picture company up here last sum- 
mer. Everything is going to be out-of-doors, 
and all the boarders are going to take part, at 
least, lots of them are ” 

“ Yes,” interrupted Belle, “ and they are sew- 
ing on the costumes now. Every boarding-house 
piazza is full of women sewing on blue and green 
stuff. Oh, it’s going to be beautiful! And we 
children are to be butterflies, pink ones and yel- 


206 TRUDY* AND TIMOTHY 

low and lavender, and the boys are going to be 
the lunar moths, all in light green! ” 

“ I’m not! ” cried Timothy. “ I’m going to be 
a bat ! In dark brown, with great leather wings 
that are coming from New York, and I’m going 
to scoot all over the place. I’m going to keep 
my costume on after it’s over, too, and chase 
folks! I’ll bet, when it gets dark, I can scare 
somebody ” 

“ Ooh, Timothy, don’t scare me, will you?” 
wailed a voice from a lodge high above them. As 
they turned quickly, the voice went on, “ Ooh, 
kind Timothy, don’t scare me, will you? I’ve 
faced mountain lions and field mice, but never a 
bat-boy! ” 

“ Who’s that?” 

“ Ooh, Trudy, you won’t let him hurt me, will 
you? Because if I get scared in Todd’s Ferry, 
when I’ve just come ” 

And then Timothy knew the voice ! 

“ It’s the Forest Ranger! " he shouted, leaping 
up the ledge. “ It’s our Forest Ranger, come to 
Todd’s Ferry! ” 

Abbott Kimball came out from behind the 


AND THE TREES 207 

bushes and jumped lightly; down the granite 
blocks. 

“ Howdy, folks? ” he called as they ran to him. 
“ If you’re half as glad to see me as I am to see 
you, you’re glad, all right. Say, Todd’s Ferry 
is great.” 

They crowded about him, seizing him by hands, 
by coat and by arms. 

“ Oh, Abbott! ” shouted Timothy, “ when Hid 
you come? ” 

“Timothy!” Trudy reproved him, “you 
mustn’t call him Abbott. Maybe he won’t like 
it.” 

“ Maybe he will,” said the Forest Ranger. “ I 
shan’t feel at home unless you call me by my 
name. And my name is Abbott.” 

“ How did you know where to find us? ” asked 
Francis. 

“ Mr. Johnston told me you were all up here, 
looking over some monument, or something, and 
said I’d find a trail, so I came along. Found the 
trail all right. Good one, too. Blazes on the 
trees well made, rags on the bushes, signs at the 
crossroads, all complete. Who did it? ” 


208 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

“ The boys made it.” 

“ We tried to do it the way you told us when 
we were in Washington. But, say, how did you 
happen to get here? Are you going to stay for 
Old Home Week? ” 

“Aren’t you going to stay all summer? ” de- 
manded Timothy. “Where are your things? 
What room did Grandmother give you? Did 
you bring your burro? Can I ride him? ” 

“ I reckon to stay awhile anyway. I’m up in 
this locality on a little business, and hearing about 
your celebration, I thought I’d take it in.” 

“ Did you come on the noon stage? ” 

“ No, came up in an automobile with some 
friends. To be exact, I came in a yellow ma- 
chine that has been up this way before.” 

“Not Mr. Sims’? Is he here? Gracious 
mighty! What’s going to happen next? ” 

The Forest Ranger grinned. “Any law 
against the troupe coming back for Old Home 
Week? Didn’t you ask them? Stanley 
said ” 

“ Is Stanley Blake here? ” 

“ Say, I guess you’d better come down to Mr. 


AND THE TREES 


209 


Johnston’s and see for yourselves. In fact, he 
told me to tell you to come home. You have 
company.” 

And not another word would he say about who 
the company might be. He talked about the 
trees they passed; about the lovely view of the 
lake and the mountain; he showed them a flying 
squirrel leaping from the top of a high spruce; 
he found a bee going into his hole in the ground, 
and made them wait for him to come out when 
they could not believe such a thing possible; he 
whistled to the birds who answered and followed 
him; but not a word about human beings. 

Trudy had a wild idea. It seemed too good to 
be true, but she ran ahead and was the first one to 
catch sight of the big house. On the piazza were 
four or five grown-ups, and — yes, there were two 
little girls ! 

“ Hurry, hurry ! ” she called. “ Isabelle and 
Claire are here! I thought they might be.” 

Timothy yelled. Claire and Isabelle turned, 
saw them, and raced down the steps and up 
through the garden to meet them. Such a chat- 
tering! At last everybody understood that the 


210 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


moving-picture company had just returned from 
California, and, having a few days before going 
to the North Shore on Massachusetts Bay, had 
motored up to Todd’s Ferry for Old Home 
Week. 

“And, oh, folks,” cried Claire, clapping her 
Hands, “ we saw you in the picture! Away out 
in California! In a wee little place where we 
were working on location. They had a movie 
show twice a week, in such a tiny hall, and we 
went, just for fun, and what do you think? They 
were showing that picture of you, Trudy, making 
jelly, and when Timothy came whistling down 
through the fields, a man in the audience shouted 
out, 4 By jimmy, I know that boy! That’s Tim- 
othy Todd, from my old home! ’ ” 

“ Why, who knows me out in California? ” 

“ Oh, Timothy, it must have been Mr. Had- 
dock, the fish-man.” 

“ Yes, that was his name. We saw him after 
the show, and he told us he used to peddle fish in 
Todd’s Ferry, but his health gave out and he 
sold out to Amos Bean, and he said, too, that you 
and Trudy helped Amos earn the money ” 


AND THE TREES 


211 


“ Oh, no, we didn’t. That was the aviator, 
you remember. We told you about him. He 
had engine trouble in a cross-country race, and 
had to land in that field where you had the vil- 
lage, and Amos helped him fix his engine. He 
got the prize and he sent Amos money enough to 
buy the fish-route.” 

“ Well, anyway, Mr. Haddock said if we ever 
saw you again or if we went to Todd’s Ferry, to 
remember him to everyone, and tell them he was 
feeling fine. So we told him all the news, and 
he was awfully glad to hear it.” 

“ Isn’t it great you could come! ” 

Then they had to speak to Stanley and Mr. 
Sims, and go down to the barn and look over the 
yellow automobile, and introduce the Forest 
Ranger to everyone who didn’t know him. They 
were just as busy as could be until supper time. 
Miss Margaret invited them all to supper, and 
they had a picnic on the piazza, and laughed and 
talked and had a most wonderful time. When 
the moon came up behind the mountain, Abbott 
said, “ I must be getting back. I haven’t un- 
packed a thing. Come along, Stan.” 


212 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

“ Come on, you children. We’ll take you 
home. It’s right on our way.” 

“Aren’t you coming to my house?” inquired 
Timothy. 

“ No,” said Abbott, “ I’m boarding with my 
new adopted aunt. She took such good care of 
my cousin Stanley when he was here last year 
that I’ve asked her to be my aunt too, and she 
says she will. She calls me ‘Abbott ’ and I call 
her ‘Aunt Theresy.’ ” 

They walked down to the village with Belle, 
and then the men took the trail behind the school- 
house to the Big Pines. 

In the white farmhouse, Timothy was lying in 
bed planning all the places he would show Ab- 
bott; in the little red house, three girls laughed 
and giggled in Trudy’s room; and in the Town 
Hall, a group of men gathered, and listened and 
nodded approval, as they heard Mr. Perkins out- 
line his plans for the last day of Old Home 
Week. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE DAY OF THE BIG PINES 

Old Home Week was wonderful! The pag- 
eant was a great success. People sat on the 
slope beneath the trees that overlooked the 
meadow and watched the actors come out from 
the grove, down by the brook, and dance on the 
smooth green grass. Timothy, as the bat, chased 
the moths and butterflies, and everyone clapped 
and clapped. 

The banquet in the Town Hall was as sociable 
as a family party, and the Senator made a funny 
speech, for the Senator came for the whole three 
days, and stayed with Mr. Perkins. At the end 
of his speech, he glanced at Mr. Perkins laugh- 
ingly, and said, “ You are all invited to be the 
guests of our friend, Perkins, on the last day of 
our celebration. He will entertain you at three 
o’clock, under the Big Pines. I’d advise you all 
to go.” 


213 


214 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

Everyone decided to take that advice, for the 
programme for the third and last day of Old 
Home Week had been kept a profound secret. 
On the printed notices it had merely said, “ Plans 
for Thursday will be announced at the banquet.” 
And when the plans were announced, no one 
knew any more than before. 

Mr. Sims had been let into the secret, and it 
was lucky he had. His experiences in hustling 
moving-picture scenes together made him invalu- 
able at the last minute. 

All Wednesday night there were strange do- 
ings around the old pine trees. Shadowy forms 
moved by the side of the road; there was the 
sound of digging; there were low calls and muf- 
fled laughter; a light burned all the night through 
in Aunt Theresy’s house, and smoke came from 
the chimney at two o’clock in the morning, when 
Aunt Theresy made hot coffee for the workers. 
When she called them to lunch, Mr. Sims, Stan- 
ley and Abbott, the stone-cutter, Father and 
Amos, Mr. Perkins and Mr. Johnston, all re- 
sponded, dusty and tired, but so pleased! All 
the rest of Todd’s Ferry were abed and asleep. 


AND THE TREES 


215 


The rising sun revealed a changed place. In 
front of the big pines a platform, covered with 
green cloth, held a small table and several chairs. 
A little way beyond, and so placed as to be visible 
to travelers coming in either direction, stood the 
granite marker, brought from the quarry and set 
up after dark, on the foundation that the men 
had prepared before and had covered with brush 
and pine needles so that it had never been noticed. 
The marker was hidden by a flag, gathered into 
folds by a scarlet cord. 

During the forenoon of Thursday Amos stayed 
by the pines to keep inquisitive people from 
peeping at what was under the flag. Several 
times he had to laugh and joke with a boarder 
who was walking that way, and wanted to know 
what was going on; but he refused to tell any- 
thing about the day’s plans, saying, “ Come down 
at three o’clock, and you’ll know all about it.” 

The “ We Four, Lots More ” were proudly 
wearing their new pins. And they did not try 
to hide them either! They liked it when someone 
said, “ Oh, you have a new pin. What does it 
mean? Such an odd design.” They laughed 


216 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

and raised their right hands high over their heads, 
pointing to the sky. And then the person would 
stare up and see nothing unusual and wonder 
what it was all about. The club members had 
great fun all the forenoon. 

At two o’clock people began to gather at the 
Big Pines. They came on foot, in automobiles, 
and in carriages. Timothy was here, there and 
everywhere, telling where to park the autos, ad- 
vising Grandmother and Grandfather where to 
sit to have the best view of the exercises, and 
calling greetings to this one and that. Francis 
brought Miss Margaret and Mother. Trudy 
was guarding the marker, very careful that no 
one should get a glimpse before the proper time. 

Such a lot of people ! For a long way the road 
was filled with standing automobiles, and all the 
open space about the trees, the little terraces on 
the hill that sloped up on the other side of the 
road, the lower branches of the maples, even, 
were filled with the Todd’s Ferry people, with 
the boarders, and with the friends and neighbors 
who had come to the celebration. 

Just before three o’clock Aunt Theresy’s door 


217 , 


AND THE TREES 

opened. Dressed in an old-fashioned silk dress 
that had been her grandmother’s, her hair held up 
with a big shell comb, her curls fluttering on 
either side of her happy face, she came out, es- 
corted by the Senator and Mr. Perkins. Mr. 
Johnston followed, but not onto the platform 
with them. He stopped where the children were 
standing and whispered to them; and Trudy and 
Timothy, Belle and Francis, went up the green 
steps to the platform and took their seats. 

No one knew what was coming, but everyone 
felt that it was going to be something very won- 
derful and beautiful — a fitting end to a happy 
three days of friendship. So the audience smiled 
and nodded and clapped when Mr. Perkins stood 
up and looked at them a moment. He turned 
and gazed up into the mighty trees towering 
above the whole company. When he looked back 
at the people there was a little hush. 

“ Friends,” he said, “ our Senator has honored 
us with his presence during our Old Home Week, 
and to-day he will speak to you on a subject vital 
to the life of our country — trees.” 

The Senator made a little speech, telling them 


218 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


what the children had already learned, how neces- 
sary and useful trees were to the life of man and 
beast, and although it was very interesting and 
well-told, it seemed to everyone only the begin- 
ning. The real reason for the celebration be- 
neath the Big Pines had not yet come. 

After he finished his speech the Senator seemed 
to think so too. For he laughed, and said, “ I 
didn’t fool you a bit, did I? Now you shall hear 
the real news. Brother Perkins is going to tell 
you a story.” 

“ Once upon a time,” began Mr. Perkins, while 
everyone sat up very straight and still to listen, 
“ there lived a wicked villain. He went about, 
killing — killing — killing — but the queer part of 
it was, he did not know he was killing. He 
thought he was providing comforts and pleasures 
for his family, because he was getting money for 
his killing, and putting the money in the bank. 
At last, he could not kill fast enough by himself, 
so he hired a monster to help him — a monster that 
breathed steam, and had wicked teeth and cruel 
claws. Then he got more and more money, and 
thought very well of himself. 


AND THE TREES 


219 


“ But one day, a good old giant came to the 
place where he lived and brought a gift for the 
villain’s little girl, a magic task that earned her 
a journey to a far country. There were other 
children who earned this journey too, and while 
they were in the far country they learned wisdom, 
and one of the things that they learned was that 
the villain who was killing — killing — all the time, 
was even worse than they had dreamed. But they 
all loved him, worthless old scamp though he was, 
so they said, ‘ Let us show him his wicked ways, 
and he will reform.’ 

“ But, alas, he was very stubborn and ignorant, 
and he would not reform. Now, there lived in 
the woods, near the villain, a beautiful and lovely 
princess who had lived for many, many years, 
and had never done an unkind thing in all 
her long life, but had always been the friend 
of every man, woman and child, and every 
living creature that came her way. But she 
grew sick, and no one could learn the reason. 
She told only her lifelong friends, the Big 
Pines ” 

And now the people looked at Aunt Theresy, 


220 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

and began faintly, just the least bit* to guess 
what Mr. Perkins was going to say. 

He was going on. 

“ I think the pines must have whispered it tc 
the children. Certainly no one of the grown 
folks could hear it. But the dreadful thing that 
was frightening the lovely princess was this. The 
cruel monster that the villain had brought to help 
him kill was trying to kill the princess’s trees! 
Yes — that was what the villain killed — trees! 

“Anyway, the children found this out, and all 
alone, they planned to deliver their beloved prin- 
cess from her cruel fear. Now the princess be- 
lieved that she must surrender her trees to the 
monster, for he said, ‘ Give me your trees, and I 
will pay you gold,’ and the princess was in need 
of gold, for she had given generously to the poor 
and needy, and had no more wealth. But the 
children came to her, saying, ‘ You shall not sell 
your wonderful trees to the killing monster. We 
will work and earn gold and give it to you for 
them. We will save them, that they may stand 
forever in the forest and never be destroyed.’ 

“ Now it happened that the wicked villain 


AND THE TREES 221 

heard what the children planned, and at last he 
understood, so he came to the children and asked 
if he might help to save the great trees, to make 
up for his sins in killing so many of their breth- 
ren. And the children were glad and said A ‘ We 
shall be glad to have you help us.’ ” 

Mr. Perkins had to stop. The people of 
Todd’s Perry were shouting and clapping and 
waving their handkerchiefs. And the children 
were laughing and blushing and wishing they 
were anywhere except on that platform with so 
many people looking at them. 

Aunt Theresy stood now. After they were 
quiet, she spoke. 

“ You have not heard quite all the story,” she 
said, “ for the good villain and the children did 
not stop with helping the poor princess. They — 
but, look! ” 

Slowly, and with dignity, she came down from 
the platform and walked to the flag that covered 
— something. She stooped and pulled the scar- 
let silken cord. Up and up came the flag, until 
at last all could see what was beneath it. 

A tall oblong of granite from their own quarry 


222 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 


proclaimed to the people of Todd’s Ferry the gift 
that was theirs on this Old Home Day! Cut on 
the face of the monument, they read it as they left 
their seats and crowded about Aunt Theresy. 

THE PRIMEVAL PINES 
and the land about them 
belong forever 
to 

THE TOWN OF TODD’S FERRY 
The gift of 
THERESA HINTON 
and 

some of her friends 

“ Three cheers for Mr. Perkins! ” shouted Mr. 
Johnston, and didn’t the woods ring! 

But Aunt Theresy was staring at the inscrip- 
tion on the stone. 

“ Oh, no!” she cried, clasping Mr. Perkins 
and Amos, who stood beside her. “ Oh, that 
isn’t right. I didn’t give them. I always wanted 
to, but I couldn’t afford it, and ” 

“ Of course you gave them,” said Mr. Perkins; 
“ don’t you suppose we want folks to know the 


223 


AND THE TREES 

Big Pines have always belonged to a native of 
Todd’s Ferry? There wouldn’t be any sense 
putting any other names on that stone. There, 
don’t say anything more about it. It’s all set- 
tled. I’ve got to receive congratulations for my 
fairy story.” 

“ Did you write that beautiful story all your- 
self, Mr. Perkins?” asked Trudy. 

“ Well,” said Mr. Perkins, hugging Belle close 
to his side, “ I must confess I had a little help; 
didn’t I, daughter? ” 

“ Gee,” said Timothy, “ I didn’t know you 
could make a speech! ” 

“ I couldn’t, unless it was right in the family, 
as this one was.” 

There was just one more wonderful surprise 
that night. Before the Senator went away, he 
had a long talk with Mr. Johnston, and when he 
shook hands with the four children whom he had 
seen in Washington, he said, “ I don’t suppose 
you will object if the Government keeps Abbott 
Kimball up in Todd’s Ferry awhile. There are 
several points about the place that we want to 
investigate, and he seems to be the one to do it. 


224 TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

And if he needs any help, you would perhaps 
show him about a little? ” 

“ Oh, what does it all mean? ” asked Trudy. 

Abbott laughed. “ Now, don’t be impatient,” 
he said. “ You can’t do everything all in a min- 
ute. You’ve just acquired a pretty fine park for 
your town; that’s a good beginning. Perhaps 
there will be work to do pretty soon. Something 
to keep you busy. I’m going to stay here, and 
I’m going to board with Aunt Theresy, and I 
hope to see you often. Come and see me, won’t 
you? ” 

“ Will we? ” said Timothy. “ Well, will we? 
Just you wait and see! ” 


The Storiea in this Seriee are: 

TRUDY AND TIMOTHY 

TRUDY AND TIMOTHY OUT-OF-DOORS 

TRUDY AND TIMOTHY AND THE TREES 



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